The Hunter and the Spy
by Overlord-Zenorac
Summary: Times have been tough for the legendary bounty hunter, Samus Aran. As the power of the dreaded Space Pirates wane, the need for bounty hunters declines as well. Just as she starts to doubt her purpose in life, something happens to turn it upside down...Co-Written by Fractured Sanity
1. A chance encounter

Chapter 1: A Chance Encounter

A/N this was written with Author Fractured Sanity, and she allowed me the pleasure of putting it on my Profile. So thank you Sanity. The story is set after Metroid other M (it happened) and before Metroid: Fusion.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the rights from Metroid. Fractured Sanity owns Crecy Archer.

Samus leaned back in her cockpit and groaned. She had faced deadly pirates, savage beasts, and monstrosities of every description without so much as a blink but now she was facing down perhaps her most stubborn opponent: worst part of boredom was that she had no way to counter attack it. During these times when bounties were slim, she'd start to have doubts. After the decline of the space pirates, she felt like she was becoming an overglorified bug hunter, as most of her bounties consisted of getting rid of all the insectoid creatures that unerringly found their way inside derelict vessels for salvage crews.

Now, after all her jobs, all her near-deaths, all her pain and all her help, she only ever made one true friend. Adam Malkovich, her former commanding officer and now just a name and a rank. She promised, however, not to mourn for him so she didn't. She just passed the time by counting stars, waiting until she got to her destination.

At long last Station Delta-6 came into view. In years past it was an important refueling station here in the frontier, but as local planetary starports like Silicon Valley became safer, places like this fell into decline. But for the meantime, most of it was used for salvagers and scavengers alike, while the rest was used as a scientific platform in the study and curing of Phazon Radiation.

"Alright, thanks for your help Samus. We'll have the money sent to your account in the usual way."

The salvage freighter started to peel away on its own course and docking procedures were sent to her navigation computer. The station really must've been in bad shape though, because even the signal transmitting the procedure had interference.

The hangar was swarming with security when Samus's gunship touched down. They didn't show much interest in the landing ships. Instead their attention was turned on a smaller courier vessel. Samus recognised it as an older Hermes class, useful for getting from point A to point B, but not much else. Perhaps something interesting would happen after all…Samus moved over to the group, to see who or what had got them interested in the nostalgic space vessel.

As she approached, a large sweaty man in black fatigues and captain's stripes walked up to her and wiped his brow. His name tag said that his name was Goethe.

"I'm sorry but I can't allow you to enter the station. The whole place is on lockdown until we find the spy."

Samus looked down at Goethe, "Commander Goethe," she began, the com system within her suit, producing a slightly gritty, robotic voice, which made most believe that samus was a robot of some sort, "Do you need any help finding this spy?"

His eyes widened. "Oh, no. No, no thank you. We have everything under control. She can't have left the station and there are only so many places to hide. We'll find her."

It seemed her reputation preceded her.

"Commander Goethe, if you had everything under control she would have been caught by now" Samus said, as she began to walk past him, wanting to find the spy and get her bounty.

He held up a hand to stop her, but he might as well have tried to stop a rolling boulder.

"Please, this is a matter of station security, we don't need any outside help."

Samus looked back at him, "As before, commander, if you didn't need my help, the spy would have been caught and captured by now" she said, as she merely continued towards the ship, as she ignored the obviously terrible commander.

The guards shied away from the titan of armor and firepower as she approached. She had met soldiers and hired guns of every description over her career, and these guards were clearly not trained for anything more dangerous than issuing docking fees. As she stepped up the loading ramp she could hear someone at the cockpit speaking on his radio.

"That's right, she sabotaged her own navigation computer. She couldn't fly this thing out of here if she tried." a pause. "How am I supposed to know how recent it is?"

Samus, having heard that, decided to do a little reconnaissance around the rest of the station. She found little besides what she already knew, the station was studying a way of reversing the effects of Phazon radiation, with minimal results. After an hour and a half of searching, samus returned to the docking bay ready to leave.

As she prepared to launch a strange thought occurred. How could a station of this size have such a large security force, much less be a center for studying Phazon, and yet have such a frail docking signal? She carefully tuned her reciever back and forth along that frequency until a telltale transmission appeared. A dog-whistle distress call.

It was a very particular signal, that ironically tried to call for help while in turn staying unnoticed. Since the signal was rarely found unless you were specifically looking for it, it was rarely used unless secrecy was paramount...such as if you were a spy.

The signal was coupled with a simple text transmission: "One half of bounty if you rescue me."

Samus, having heard said transmission, used her suit's transmitter to send a signal on the same wavelength and frequency, "Go to the ship labelled 'the Cosmo Liner', by 18:00 hours"

The transmission suddenly stopped and was replaced with a woman's relieved voice. "Oh thank god, someone actually heard my distress signal! Who is this?"

"I am Samus Aran, bounty hunter" Samus stated entering her spacecraft, "Now, state your name and destination?" she finished, growing curious at to what spy would use such an old trick as a Dog-Whistle signal.

"Uh, Crecy Archer, operating out of Silicon Valley starport." the voice paused. "You're not going to turn me in to the station security are you? I'll wipe the data if you try!" the spy suddenly sounded very desperate.

"It depends on the bounty," Samus said, walking to the cockpit and sat in the control seat. "How much will I be given?" she said, as she started the ships engines, ready to leave as soon as the spy entered her ship.

The spy didn't answer immediately. "You'll get 3000 galactic standard." she said eventually. "You won't get more than 500 if you turn me in, if they give you anything at all."

The bounty hunter replied, "I accept" still sounding like a mindless automaton. however she waited a moment before adding , "make in on board A-S-A-P"

"Um, that could be difficult. You see I'm sort of...outside the station." the spy said. "If you maybe put your loading ramp down just outside the station's vent cluster, I can come to you."

"No wonder they never found her…" Samus said, ending communications with the spy. Her ship levitated upwards and flew out of the space station and around to the vent cluster. The ship then hovered in place as it's ramp opened.

A lightly armored figure emerged from amongst the stream of vented waste gasses and sprinted towards the ship. In one hand the figure carried a box about a foot across each side which it held as close as if it was a child. She was on the ship in moments and leaned against the nearest wall in sheer relief as soon as she was aboard.

The room that the spy was entirely empty, except for one door with a red translucent light above it. The room itself was a grey, metallic with a few buttons on a keypad next to ramp.

Having a new passenger on board, the ramp automatically closed as the atmosphere inside repressurized. "Spy, meet me in the cockpit" a robotic voice spoke over the ships speakers as a green light lit up, above the door as it jutted open.

The spy complied, and slowly made her way through the ship. She was struck by how bare and spartan the whole place was. No decorations or personal effects, nothing that wasn't strictly functional at all. It was difficult to believe that anyone actually lived here. She almost dreaded to see what sort of automaton would own such a vessel, but she arrived at the cockpit anyway. She cleared her throat to announce her presence.

The cockpit had a control panel which covered half the room and on it where thousands of different coloured/sized buttons. Above the control panel was the viewscreen, showing only stars and close planets, while the room itself was a dark orange colour. Also within the cockpit there was a single rotating brown, leather chair in the middle. The chair rotated around so that Samus could see her new passenger, "Spy, the closest M based planet is Gauda Prime," she said, looking up at her, "I want my bounty now, before we go any further". Samus now took a look at the Spy, taking in her suits features.

The spy groaned. "You really are a pure-bred bounty hunter aren't you?" she said as she removed her helmet. She was an albino, judging by her complexion. Her skin and fine short hair were shock white, though her silvery eyes were almost certainly implants of some sort. "Look, I don't have that much on me, but what's in this box is worth a small fortune to the right buyer. If you just get me out of here I'll let you have a copy of the data."

Samus looked at her, "Or I could just kill you and take the box from you. So, why should I get you out of here?" she asked, as she stood up, standing a full head taller than the spy. She looked down and into crecy's eyes, her visor obscuring crecy's vision of her face, as she tried to figure out the purpose for the implants in her eyes.

Crecy swallowed. "There's no call for that." she held the box out. "Do what you want with it, and good luck with the code. If you don't get it right on the first try, it won't be worth anything to anyone, and those nice men on the station won't be happy that you deleted their navigation charts." She kept a straight face, even as worry lined the edges throughout.

Samus merely produced an odd chuckle as she sat down, "Impressive, very impressive" she said as she looked up at her, "Now, what is your destination?" she asked, as her seat rotated round so that she was facing the control console.

Crecy stood in shocked silence. Was that...a test? Or had she really brushed that close to death? "Uh, Silicon Valley starport."

Samus put in the co-ordinates for the Silicon Valley Starport, as she put the speed up to maximum, "Fine, I can find another bounty in that space port to make this worth the detour." she remained still, looking as if she were merely a lifeless suit of armour in the chair.

Crecy waited in silence for a few minutes to see if anything else was forthcoming. When it seemed that her rescuer (for want of a better term) was content to sit in silence, she decided to broach the subject. "It's been a long day, you don't mind if I, ah….freshen up, do you?"

Samus tilted her head, just enough that she could see Crecy in her peripheral vision, "The toilet is to the left of the Cockpit door, while the chemical shower is to the right," she said remaining in her seat, even speaking about it made her realize that she had left some of her own needs unmet...

A few minutes later Crecy leaned against the wall of the shower as warm water massaged her tired muscles. "What have I gotten myself into?" she sighed to no-one in particular. It was supposed to be a simple mission: get in, get the data, get out. It wasn't anything she hadn't done a hundred times before, and yet it was today where everything went wrong.

She heard the door to the room open, and then close again a few seconds later. Crecy shut off the water and looked outside the stall to find a clean white towel and a fresh change of clothes waiting for her on the counter. 'So perhaps this guy does have some hospitality'. She thought as she dried herself off. The clothes, a simple white blouse and red skirt, were a little big for her (especially around the chest), but they were clean and warm. She stepped out and started looking for her host so she could say thanks.

Samus was not in the control room, but a soft zzzzzz-ing sound, could be heard by crecy coming out of the room that she had heard was the 'toilet'. Samus was inside,doing her business. She had spent the last 3 days in her Armour suit and her Zero suit, due to having to defend off the scientists both day and night. So she had no time to have her customary shower or a toilet break.

Crecy knocked lightly on the door. "Thank you for the clothes." she said. She decided to wait until her host emerged before she started asking pertinent questions like, 'why do you have women's clothing laying about?'.

Samus remained silent, looking at the door as she finished. She then washed up, before putting her armored exterior back on, then opening the door, as she looked down at the newly dressed passenger. "I expect those clothes back, before you leave to Silicon Valley" she said, as she walked past her and back into the cockpit.

"Don't worry, you'll get them back. I wouldn't want you to get in trouble with your lady-friend." Crecy said. She paused for effect. "These do belong to a friend of yours don't they?"

Samus remained silent as she sat in her control chair and it rotated so that she was looking at the controls, before a small ringing could be heard coming from a button labelled, 'Com Systems'. Samus pressed it as a the windshield of the spaceship became a black opaque, as a static look came over it. As the static dissipated a strong, snide looking man appeared on screen. He had short, Auburn hair and small devious green eyes with a paper thin face. This was of course a representative of the federation.

"Samus Aran, we have a problem on the planet Gauda, pirates have invaded and defeated the federation forces." He said ending communications as he knew Samus would go and do what needed to be done.

"Fine.." Samus said, turning around to look at crecy, "Crecy, we have to make a short stop"


	2. Guardian Angel?

The Hunter and the Spy

Chapter 2: Guardian Angel?

A/N I own none of the rights from metroid. As before Co-written with Fractured Sanity, Whose birthday was on Saturday, so sorry fracty HAPPY BIRTHDAY AGAIN!

Previously…

After finishing a contract for some salvagers, Samus Aran returned to their home-base, Delta 6. Upon her arrival, she discovered that a spy had disappeared within the huge station. However the spy asked for the bounty hunters help using a dog-whistle signal. Samus agreed to the spy's plea, accepting her 3000 galactic dollar reward and began their journey to the spy's destination: Silicon Valley Space Station. However, she was hailed by the federation, drawing her attention to one of their planets that had been invaded by the space pirates...

"Fine.." Samus said, turning around to look at Crecy after the transmission from the federation agent ended, "Crecy, we have to make a short stop"

"Fine by me I suppose, so long as I get to the drop-off point in one piece." Crecy said. She leaned over her shoulder and tried to get a better look at the cockpit's display. "So, where are we off to? The Federation fleet? Sunburst station?"

"No, we're going to Guada," Samus said, as she moved her neck to face the spy, "now, go change into your armour" she said, as she faced back to the screen.

Crecy balked. "We're going there? You heard that guy, the place is overrun by pirates! We'd be going straight into the hornet's nest!"

"I know, but Gauda is the closer than Silicon Valley," Samus replied as she looked at her current coordinates. They were roughly 20 minutes away from the planets orbit, "and I don't trust you enough to stay in my ship alone." she muttered.

Crecy started to say something, then stopped. After a moment she forged ahead. "And what exactly are we going to do once we get there? What exactly CAN we do? Maybe you haven't noticed but there's only two of us versus god knows how many pirates."

Samus turned to face Crecy, "I've noticed it, I know the odds of us surviving this incident, but I do my job and I'll protect you if thats part of it" she said, "Now go and get into your armor, use my room if you must" she said returning to the control panel, ready to fly her ship through the atmosphere and onto the crust of the planet Gauda.

Crecy turned into the depths of the ship to get her armor. Realistically, it wasn't as if she had much choice in the matter. Still, it gave her an opportunity to scout out her host's living conditions. She slipped inside with her armor under one arm. Samus's room contained a military style bunk, a small cabinet, a small mirror; a tank where it appeared that she kept her armor when its not on her and a picture of the armored titan with a group of feathered creatures. She picked up the picture and took a closer look. Something about it the bird-like creatures seemed familiar, but not in a way she could place.

Mindful that she didn't have long until planetfall, she put the picture back and started to slip into her lightweight armor. It wasn't meant to stand up to the rigors of combat, but it was better than nothing. She put her helmet on and looked back at the photograph. Something in her memory clicked.

"Chozo…"

She felt the ship tilt to the side as it entered the atmosphere. Samus at the helm shot through the particle filled layer and down to about 10 kilometers from the surface of the planet, before slowing down and finally landing. A knocking sound from the door could be heard by the light armored woman. "Hurry up, we've landed" She heard, from a robotic voice from outside her host's room.

Crecy double-checked the seal where her helmet met the bodysuit then opened the door and instinctively took a half step back from the tall armored figure. She gave a mock salute.

"So boss, what's the plan?"

"We head out, find where the leader of the group is then capture or terminate him" Samus said turning around, feeling nervous on the inside but not showing it in her posture, "Now let's go" she said heading off towards the airlock.

Crecy followed behind, though not too eagerly. She tried not to think about what space pirates did to those they captured, in drawn-out, gorey detail.

"You seem rather confident. Done this before?" she asked, not sure which answer would be the better indication of sanity.

Samus turned to her and nodded, "Yes, about 7 times" she said, still having nightmares about the first time, "and It'll only take approximately 48 hours", she said, as she pressed the airlock button and a light hssssss sound could be heard. The airlock was depressurising.

Crecy was quiet as the stood next to Samus and waited for the airlock to open. She touched the pistol at her side and thought about how much good it would do against pirates. Like it or not, she'd have to stick close to Samus if she wanted to get out of this alive. She tried to remember the last time she'd had to kill anyone, she prided herself on almost never needing to.

The door finally opened, making itself into a ramp. Samus walked down it knowing that she would have to kill a great number of space pirates, it didn't bother her now, due to her killing hundreds of them already. The ship had landed them on a deserted beach, 40 clicks from the mainland.

Crecy blinked and shaded her eyes until her visor adjusted to the unexpected light. Bright daylight struck off the surface of a roiling sea and heat rose up from the rocky beach around where they landed.

"Well, this is unexpectedly romantic." Crecy said ironically as she noticed columns of black smoke rise across the horizon. A distant contrail traced its way across the sky before vanishing in a puff of smoke. She imagined that she could hear the report of distant gunfire over the roar of the ocean.

Samus turned and looked at her, "Agreed," she said, not getting the joke as she walked towards the point her HUD showed was the city. "Now, Crecy, If you need to stay behind me," she said, continuing her trek, knowing that if the space pirates tried to ambush them then Samus's armour would last longer that Crecy's.

"No problem there." Crecy said as she looked around. They had landed near a thickly forested area, plenty of cover, and plenty of places for an ambush. "So...where exactly are we going?" she asked.

"We're going to the city of Trice," Samus said as they saw burning and crumbling buildings in the distance, "The leader will be in that ship," She said pointing at the ship above the city, as she finally made it to the city entrance.

Crecy rubbed the back of her head as she looked up at the large pirate mothership hovering over the city. "You have a plan to get up there I assume?" she tried not to look at the rubble and wreckage that littered the area.

"Of course, the plan is to improvise"

White hot plasma streaked by them. Crecy swore and ducked behind a wrecked car as a squad of marauding space pirates rounded the corner, screaming in their strange tongue and firing deadly plasma at them. The largest and burliest pirate in red armor growled "Hunter!" and hurled a green pulsing sphere at Samus's feet.

Samus took her chance and ran forward, jumping over the green sphere as she shot an orange plasma shot at one of the space pirates, making it's chest disintegrate leaving it's head, arms and legs. Samus ran onwards through the hail of green plasma bullets, only getting a few shots hitting her shielded armour. Samus transformed her hand-cannon into it's missile mode and fired at a group of them, making them disappear from life.

Samus however misjudged the power of The green sphere as it exploded a few seconds later and it lifted a surprised Samus into the air and dropped her face first to the ground. The space pirates began to surround her and aimed point blank ready to finally kill the hunter that had killed so many of their brethren. The red pirate lifted her up by her helmet while another pinned her gun arm to her side. It snarled into her visor and pressed its gun up against her helmet. Samus closed her eyes and swallowed, 'No…' she thought.

There was a blur of motion behind the red pirate and it screamed out in agony, dropping Samus to the ground. The one holding her gun yelped in pain as the blur moved past and cut clean through its armor. Another fell to the ground as something struck its kneecap. The remaining pirates fired in every direction trying to hit the invisible attacker, momentarily forgetting their captive hunter.

They shouldn't have. Samus had taken the distraction as an advantage and jumped off the ground before minimising into her morph-ball form and sent out a super-bomb. Within 10 seconds the group of space pirates had been vaporised as she returned to standing form and waited for the would-be ninja.

The ninja didn't seem to appear. After a while Crecy slowly raised her head up from behind her hiding place. "Did...did you just do that?" she asked, surveying the charred remains in the blasted crater around Samus.

Samus looked back at Crecy, "No, but whoever did was incredibly fast and powerful," She said, having finally got her heartbeat back to normal. She then walked onwards towards the centre of the city, 'I sense this will be an interesting Job' she thought.

Crecy had to dash to keep up with her. "Um, shouldn't we cut through these buildings instead of walking down the middle of the street? There could be more of those pirates." Crecy looked around cautiously, instinctively pausing near every piece of rubble in case

she suddenly had to duck for cover.

"That would waste our time," Samus began as she continued walking forwards, "It's more efficient to walk straight through the streets," she finished, continuing her trek until she was right below the giant space-craft. What puzzled her was that there seemed to be no more space-pirates in the area. She scanned the area with her HUD.

At first nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but then she started to realize that all tracks were converging towards a single direction. Not only those of the space pirates, but those of the civilians as well. They were rounding everyone up in one place. Samus felt a tap on her shoulder and looked up where Crecy was pointing. A space pirate shuttle was descending from the mothership towards the center of the city.

"More troops?" Crecy guessed.

"No, I think they're bringing the civilians into the ship, so that the federation doesn't blow it up," Samus stated, knowing that by now all of the pirates would already be on the ground while the ship would be being maintained by a skeleton crew. "Now, we go in and save the civilians," she said as she ran down towards the group of civilians and the army of space pirates, firing her hand-cannon with direct precision, killing a good 5 space pirates before they had a chance to blink.

The pirates scrambled under the surprise fire. A number of pirates kept the presence of mind to fire back, though not to much effect. The civilians screamed and ducked within their pens as the battle began. A squadron of pirates with jetpacks rose from the mass and started strafing around Samus.

Samus aimed her hand-cannon at the middle pirates jetpack, it then exploded killing the space pirates before making the other space pirates jet packs explode in a domino effect. After that Samus aimed her now transformed hand-cannon and shot a super missile at the squadron in front of her.

"Samus, give up or the civilians die!", A space pirate yells as he held up a grenade up and showed it to her clearly.

Samus aimed her weapon at the pirate, then paused as the shuttle hovered very deliberately over the penned-up civilians. She could just make out the pilot, who gave her a definite look that said that he would drop it on the helpless citizens if he had to, 'I can kill the one with the grenade no problem, but there's no way I could stop that shuttle if it falls...Damn!' she thought as a group of space pirates walked up to her and aimed their pulse rifles right at her visor.

However, they didn't shoot as they appeared to get a message from their headset. "You'rrrrre coming with ussss!" one of the space pirate snarled as it grabbed her arm and dragged a now non-resistant Samus towards the space shuttle.

Crecy watched all this unfold from her hiding place. It had only taken a few moments, and Samus was captured. Now she and the civilians were being herded onto the shuttle. Crecy took a deep breath as she considered her options, but she only really had one option. She sighed and pressed a button at her neck.

A few short minutes later, the shuttle lifted off with a full hold and flew up toward the mothership above, Carrying a third of the civilians and a now powerless Samus Aran.


	3. Gemini

A/N sorry for the long delay, both me and Fractured were busy. Hopefuly the next chapter will take less time to put on. :)

Previously…

After finishing a contract for some salvagers, Samus Aran returned to their home-base, Delta 6. Upon her arrival, she discovered that a spy had disappeared within the huge station. However the spy asked for the bounty hunters help using a dog-whistle signal. Samus agreed to the spy's plea, accepting her 3000 galactic dollar reward and began their journey to the spy's destination: Silicon Valley Space Station. However, she was hailed by the federation, drawing her attention to one of their planets that had been invaded by the space pirates. During her stay, crecy discovers an odd photograph, a picture of Samus with chozo before they land on Guada. After landing they're attacked and almost killed by an ambush by a group of space pirates, but is saved by an unknown person. After Samus and Crecy make it to the centre of the city where the Leader's spaceship is, Samus is captured when one of the space pirates threatens to blow up a group of civilians…

"Sid'ric! Did you hear? We finally captured the Hunter!"

The pirate ensign sighed as he leaned against the rail overlooking the hold where they corralled all the prisoners. He looked over at his companion doubtfully.

"Dec, the Hunter is just a tale they tell to keep whelps like you in line."

"It's true! I saw them take him down to the secure level with my own eyes!"

Sid'ric patted his companion condescendingly on the head. "If you don't stop talking nonsense and snooping around, you're going to find yourself on the secure level yourself, and you don't want that. No one who gets sent down there ever comes back. Not until the boss finishes with them anyway."

Dec was about to retort back before he heard a faint sound. Sid'ric looked around before he noticed it was coming from down below. He figured out was it was. It was a high pitched, pained wail that sounded as if it came from a woman.

Sid'ric slammed his weapon against the railing. "Shut up down there!"

"So anyway, where is this secure level?"

"Don't be an idiot Dec. It's the lowest level, where it's always been."

"What? I didn't say anything."

The two pirates looked around, and realized they were alone on the gantry. Neither of them noticed the blur dash around the corner towards the elevators.

Samus was feeling terrified as she was strapped to an operating table in her Zero suit. They had knocked her out as soon as she was on board the ship and then she woke up here. Just as Samus was about to try and move, a man came in. The man was 20-ish year old man with small, brown hair with green eyes. He was wearing the usual Space pirate garb but with white gloves over his hands and a white lab coat. He walked over to the squirming Samus.

"Samus Aran, 'saviour' of the cosmos…" he said chuckling, as he took a remote from his pocket. He pressed a button on it, as the wall 10 meters in front of Samus opened up revealing her Chozo armour.

"My suit!" samus yelled trying even harder to break free of her restraints. The doctor merely laughed as he walked over.

"They're solid proctactium, they're 7 times the strength of steel" he said as he watched her hopeless efforts. Samus looked at him and snarled.

"As soon as i get my suit-!" she began before she was backhanded by the doctor.

"You'll do nothing, because as soon as i get back from telling the leader that i have you, I'll be back to...'play' with you" he said menacingly as he walked back to the door. "Samus," he began cheerfully before lowering his tone to that of sadistic standards, "Enjoy the last hour of pain free life" he then turned off the lights and left. Samus was now alone, in a room where the only light came from the lights underneath her Chozo armour. 'if only i had my suit' she thought, as she went back to trying to break free. She couldn't find a single inch of give, but she couldn't give up now. She'd get out of this...somehow.

It was impossible to tell how much time had passed. She had struggled and squirmed under the restraints until her wrists felt raw and she was still no closer to getting to her suit. The door slid open and she could just make out the sadist doctor's silhouette.

"Now then Samus, are you ready to leave your old, painless life behind?" he asked, as he turned on the lights, smiling on the inside as he could see Samus momentarily blinded. He strode across the room and picked up a razor-sharp scalpel. He turned and made sure she could see the flash of light across its blade.

"Let's get started shall-" he stopped with a look of panic and started clutching at his throat. He clawed at something around his throat and tried to throw his weight against an invisible force that had him in its grip. He crashed against a counter, throwing a try of vials and implements crashing to the ground. He fell to one knee as his strength started giving out, and with a final gurgle he finally collapsed. Silence fell across the room.

Samus broke the silence, "Who's there? show yourself!" she demanded, not sure if she should be grateful yet, or if this saviour just wanted her for himself.

"Samus? Are you all right?" asked a familiar voice near her ear.

"Crecy?" Samus asked moving her head to look in her general direction, "How'd you get here and how you'd you turn invisible?"

"Sorry, trade secret." The air seemed to shimmer, and Crecy's lightweight armor suit seemed to materialize from nowhere. "Hold on, I'll get you out of this."

She retrieved a key from the strangled doctor and unlocked Samus's restraints.

"Well, I guess this explains why you had women's clothes on hand." she said nonchalantly as she put her garrote away.

Samus looked up at her, "Thanks," She said, trying to get feeling back into her wrists, "and yes, sometimes even bounty hunters want to wear something else" she muttered as she threw her legs over the side of the table and threw herself off.

"So, the pirates have finished ferrying the civilians up here and they've got them all penned up on the central deck. I have no idea what they want them for, but I doubt its anything wholesome." Crecy started rummaging through the doctor's pockets and took his security card for herself. "There's a shuttle on that level, but it can't fit everyone at once, and I don't think the pirates will be considerate enough to let us make more than one trip."

Samus knew that if she didn't save the civilians, that they'd probably be used as slaves, "Hmm," She thought as she looked down at the dead doctor, "does he have a communicator on him?" she asked as she began to rummage through his pockets on her own. she however never found one, "Damn," she muttered standing up.

"Who were you planning to contact?" Crecy asked as she looked up at Samus's armor.

"I was going to contact the leader and pretend to be the doctor," Samus began as she looked at her suit as well before saying in an almost perfect mimic of the doctor, "And say that Samus has escaped and started the silent auto destruct."

Crecy looked at her in surprise. Perfect mimicry wasn't a skill she was expecting to find. "And once you've got the pirates in a panic, then what was your plan?"

"The pirates would probably evacuate the ship, almost certainly leaving the civilians as they don't have enough ships," Samus begun, as she walked over to her power suit container, "then, I'd kill any of the stragglers, before taking over this ship and landing it."

Crecy rubbed her chin. "Well, that's better than the plan I had. The only problem I see is that we'd have to get to the bridge to set off a general alarm. You know, where most of the best security and guards tend to hang out?"

Samus looked at Crecy, "I hadn't thought of that…" Samus replied, trying to unlock the container holding her suit but unable to, "Can you open this crecy?" she asked, slightly annoyed at how bad this was making her look/feel.

"I think so. Hang on." Crecy touched something on the wrist of her armor and, with a flick, activated an energy blade that burst out from her armor's gauntlet. She carefully cut away at the container's lock and hinges. She swore under her breath as the blade flickered out of existence just before she finished cutting through the last hinge.

Samus stood to the side as the door slammed backwards and onto the ground, "Again, thanks," she said as she went in and quickly put on her chozo suit. She did a quick scan of her suit. The scan showed that all of her equipment, except her cannon were now corrupted and unusable. She frowned as she looked over at Crecy, "Now, what was your plan?" Samus asked, her voice reverting to the robotic one, "considering my one is now, impossible to implement"

Crecy shrugged. "I can sneak on ahead and try to take out any guards I find between here and the bridge. Once we're there, I can see what I can do with their main control system, but I'll need you to watch my back while I work on it. How does that sound?"

Samus nodded her armored head, "Good, I'll follow you from a distance, then protect you when we get to the control console," she said, heading over to the door. "Now, lets get going"

Crecy nodded and pressed a hidden button at her neck. Her outline blurred before she vanished entirely, leaving only a faint glimmer in the air to mark her presence.

Samus looked around outside, looking for any pirates. Samus the had a sudden thought as she looked back at the invisible spy, 'Could she be an assassin?'

"This way." she heard Crecy's voice from her communicator, scarcely more than a whisper. The door to the room opened and closed again.

Samus merely shook her head and waited a couple of minutes before following the invisible spy. The spy lead her deep into the ship, stopping sometimes to let an unsuspecting patrol to pass, or doubling back to try a less populated route. But sometimes she lost track of her invisible guide, or she seem to stop entirely and say nothing. She was starting to doubt if her companion really knew where she was going.

"Crecy, do you know where you are?" Samus asked, grabbing the invisible being by the shoulder, "because we've been going nowhere" she hissed through her robotic synthesizer.

"Of course I know where we are." Crecy said indignantly as she flickered back into view. She looked over Samus's shoulder and hurriedly pulled her into a side room before closing the door and holding up a finger for quiet. Straining to hear, the two could just make out a pair of space pirate voices chatting to each other in their native tongue walking down the hallway the two were just standing in.

Crecy breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay, listen. I downloaded the map for this place when I snuck aboard, but my translator can only do about 6 languages and space pirate isn't one of them. So I know where we are...just not where we're trying to get to." She gave an embarrassed cough. "I can usually find my way around a ship pretty well, but this one isn't designed like a Federation ship. The bridge could be anywhere."

Samus sighed as she face palmed, "...Show me the map, I can probably guess where the bridge is," she said, getting irked by crecy for being pulled along on wild bird chase.

Crecy reluctantly handed over a datastick with the map on it, and it was soon downloaded into Samus's suit. The map was of poor quality and showed signs of data corruption in areas, but it was good enough that they had a general layout of the ship and a handy glowing dot to tell them where they were. They were apparently near the center of a mass of labyrinthine rooms and corridors that had been smashed together with little rhyme or reason.

"It looks to me like this ship was cobbled together from a number of smaller vessels. That's the only explanation I can think of anyway." Crecy said.

"Hmm…" Samus hummed, as she looked at the map. 'If her theory is correct, where would the bridge be?' she thought, scanning the entire map for a couple of silent moments. "There," she said, finally, as a small hologram of the map shot out of her visor. She then pointed at the very middle, where a small, corrupted room could be seen.

Crecy peered at where Samus was pointing. "Hmm…I guess I can see the logic. It's pretty insulated from outside attack by the rest of the ship, and hard to storm."

She traced a finger between them and their destination. She paused by a long, narrow horizontal shaft that terminated just above the corrupted room.

"Service access. There'll be a locked door or something, but I could get through it. It'll help us avoid the guards too." She looked up at Samus. "Trouble is, it'll be a tight squeeze, even for me. We'll have to find another route for you."

Samus scanned the map, trying to find a route that she could use. The only route that could get her there from this location was one that went right through, what she assumed, was the space pirate barracks.

"What if my suit's off?" Samus inquired, as her suit seemed to become pure energy before dissipating, leaving a Zero suited Samus holding a small paralyzer gun. She blinked slightly, as the room was darker without her illuminating map or visor.

Crecy took a startled step back. "I-I guess that would work. You can just have your suit vanish at will?"

Samus looked at Crecy oddly before she sighed slightly, "Not as such... I have to wait 20 minutes before I can make it reform," She said as she slowly opened the door and looked around, "It's clear," She muttered as she closed the door and looked at Crecy.

"Now…" She said as a faint blush formed on her face, "My gun can't do anything but stun...So i'm going to need you to pro-pro-protect me" she stuttered, looking down slightly, never feeling so embarrassed before, "...If the pirates see me.."

Crecy patted her on the shoulder. "It won't come to that, I promise. Now come on, we'd better get moving before they find out you've escaped."

With a careful glance across the hall, she lead the way towards the service access. Now that they knew where they were going they moved with purpose and before long found themselves outside one corner away from the entrance to the maintenance tunnel. Crecy took a quick glance around the corner and then groaned quietly.

"Looks like they've got a security turret watching the whole corridor. I could take it out, but that'd set off an alarm. We'd have guys swarming while we try to storm the bridge." she leaned against the wall next to Samus as she weighed up their options. Eventually she said, "How long until you can reform your suit?"

Samus sighed, "Another 10 minutes," She said, giving a quick glance at the turret, "I have an idea," She muttered looking at Crecy, "You turn invisible and walk ahead and find a way to turn off the turret, I'll stay here and keep watch," she explained, pointing her gun down the other corridor.

Crecy took another quick glance around the corner. "...Okay, if we do this fast maybe they'll think it's just a glitch. When I give the signal you'd better be ready to move, okay?"

"Okay," Samus said nodding, 'only 7 minutes left' she thought, feeling uncomfortable only wearing the Zero suit, especially since Crecy acted oddly earlier when she saw her in it again.

Crecy vanished again and darted around the corner. After a few moments she hissed through the communicator. "It's down, hurry up."

Samus made a break for it and ran across the room towards Crecy in milliseconds, "I'm here," She muttered, looking at her, "Now, lets set the alarm"

Crecy put the wire she was holding back into the camera's innards and closed its access. They ducked into a closet-like room and Crecy wrenched open the covering to the maintenance tunnel.

"Now, since you're the one with the big guns you should probably go first. How much longer until you can do the armor rematerialization thingy?"

"3 minutes," Samus said as she entered the maintenance tunnel, "And my what do you mean by big guns?" she asked, forgetting that she neglected to inform Crecy that her suit had been corrupted.

"Well, you did take out those first pirates at the city." Crecy said as she crawled into the tunnel after her. "In any case, if someone doesn't distract them I'd probably be turned into swiss cheese the moment I drop in."

"I'll distract them then," Samus muttered as she counted the seconds down, "Okay, are you ready?"

Crecy nodded and started to fade from view again. "They won't know what hit them."

Samus peeped her head out of the vent, and saw two upside down guards that were facing away from her. She silently fell out of the grate and landed on the floor with grace. She then slowly walked over to the illegible, chattering guards.

"Ah, Sal did you hear that we have sam-" One of the guards said, in his native tongue, before he felt two hands. one of the hands was on his forehead, the other was on his shoulder. The last thing the guard every felt, was the hand on his head violently pulled to the side breaking his neck.

Sal (the other guard) looked around and saw the zero suited bounty hunter. Without hesitation he lifted his rifle to shoot her, but was foiled by a kick to the stomach that sent him to the floor. He looked up as she kicked him hard in the face, making him lose consciousness and a couple of teeth. "There, you can come down now," Samus said as she walked back to the vent.

Crecy dropped down silently and quickly looked around the room before her gaze settled on a large mainframe.

"This looks like the place. I'll see what I can do with this thing, but I don't know how long it will take. Just make sure I'm not interrupted." She took off her helmet and set it at the controls as she sat down. She started typing away and her brows immediately furrowed in concentration.

Seconds later the room flashed red a klaxon sounded throughout the ship. Crecy swore.

"That wasn't me!" she cried out. "They must have found out you escaped, we're about to have company!"

Samus swore as she appeared to glow a heavenly light for a moment. After said moment, the famous (or infamous) Chozo armor appeared on her as she aimed for the door, "Hurry up then," The bounty hunter muttered.

"Looks like there's nothing for it then." Crecy muttered to herself. As the sound of approaching pirates echoed towards them, she took a cable from a pouch and plugged one side into the mainframe, and the other into a socket hidden in the back of her skull. She closed her eyes and clenched her teeth as codestream swam across her field of vision.

The door to the room burst open and the first pirate leveled his gun at Samus and yelled something in its alien tongue.

"Well hello too," Samus said as she ran towards them. She kicked the one that aimed at her in his nether regions, punched the alien on his left in his ugly as sin face. With her hand cannon, she shot one of the creatures at the back, making him disintegrate.

More pirates stormed the room, but these met with the same grisly fate as the first under the hunter's superior firepower. One pirate managed to get a shot off which Samus expertly dodged, but the plasma bolt struck a display monitor on the far side of the room, sending sparks everywhere.

"Don't hit the computers! They're the only thing keeping us in orbit!" barked the doctor over the ship's intercom.

Unable to harm the Hunter and rapidly losing men, the pirates fell back. They were hardly out of the woods yet though. The intercom crackled back into life.

"Useless drones! You should have stayed put Samus, you leave me no choice but to play my trump card. I'm sure you'll make a perfect test subject."

The door burst open as a massive behemoth crashed into the room, crushing fallen pirates underfoot. It was a huge pirate, but it was...wrong. It was almost twice the size of a normal pirate even hunched as it was, and it had a second pair of crushing muscular arms. In each hand it wielded a massive energy blade and its chitinous carapace shimmered with some sort of energy field. Four beady eyes clouded with berserker rage glared at her.

"Say hello to project gemini. Say goodby as well, for it's also the last thing you will ever see."

The creature bared its needle-like teeth and charged.


	4. Saving the day and getting the girl

Previously: After finishing a contract for some salvagers, Samus Aran returned to their home-base, Delta 6. Upon her arrival, she discovered that a spy had disappeared within the huge station. However the spy asked for the bounty hunters help using a dog-whistle signal. Samus agreed to the spy's plea, accepting her 3000 galactic dollar reward and began their journey to the spy's destination: Silicon Valley Space Station. However, she was hailed by the federation, drawing her attention to one of their planets that had been invaded by the space pirates. During her stay, crecy discovers an odd photograph, a picture of Samus with chozo before they land on Guada. After landing they're attacked and almost killed by an ambush by a group of space pirates, but is saved by an unknown person. After Samus and Crecy make it to the centre of the city where the Leader's spaceship is, Samus is captured when one of the space pirates threatens to blow up a group of civilians. After being imprisoned by the space pirates, she was soon saved by Crecy who was discovered to be her invisible Guardian Angel. She finally got her suit back and both her and Crecy set out to shut down the space pirates space station, using the stealth approach. However, they were found out after getting into the control room and Samus had to fight her way through a few guards, she met face to face with something she'd never seen before: A behemoth sized space pirate called 'Project Gemini'...

Samus jumped back as 'Project Gemini' swung one of his massive arms at her. She then fired a plasma shot from her hand cannon. The shot flashed harmlessly across its shielded hide and it slashed at her with all four talon-like energy blades at once.

The armor clad bounty hunter managed to jump out of the way in the nick of time, before yelling, "Crecy, hurry up!" aiming her next blast at the goliath's hand. Crecy gurgled something unintelligible through clenched teeth. Suddenly the ship started to list and the floor tilted under their feet like a sinking ship. The goliath lost its balance and Samus's shot hit the bulkhead behind.

"Warning. Warning." the ship's computer intoned. "Critical malfunction in gravity control. Damage control, please report to your stations."

The floor continued to tip until the behemoth started sliding away towards the far wall, while the bounty hunter forced her fingers into the nearby computer console. With a grunt the abomination cut into the ground with its blades, shooting up sparks and leaving a pair of long gashes in the deck plating. One blade at a time it started to crawl towards Samus with purpose.

Said bounty hunter aimed her cannon at it, before firing 2 missiles at the beast, hoping to at the very least send the being back. 'How do I stop it?!' her thoughts raged out as this being seemed to be almost indestructible. This time her shots struck true. The creature let go of its two foremost blades as the missiles struck its hands and slid down against the far wall with a loud 'clang'. It snarled and tried to climb up at its quarry with its two remaining blades.

"Warning. Warning. Critical failure in gravity control. All hands abandon ship."

Red lights started to flash throughout the ship as the klaxon started. The creature screamed and covered its eyes with one pair of hands while the others slashed out at random.

The bounty hunter's body was lifted up and began to turn slightly as the gravity in the station failed. She took a few moments to get used to the sensation and get her bearings, after that she aimed her cannon at the goliaths hand again, hoping to destroy it. As soon as she fired, her body was flung backwards as the rocket finally hit it's mark.

Ichorous blood streamed from the creature's crippled hand. It tried to lash out but in zero gravity it merely flailed in place, trying in vain to cut anything in reach. Samus bounced off the mainframe where Crecy was plugged into the massive machine. Crecy's eyes were clenched shut and her face locked in a rictus of pain.

"Crecy are you okay?" Samus asked, feeling afraid for her friend. 'Wait, friend?' she thought for a moment, before throwing that thought away. Samus then used her visor to scan the stealthy spy to see what was wrong with her.

Without warning the gravity suddenly came back and everything slammed down to the floor. Crecy gasped and violently yanked the cord from the back of her skull before curling up and collapsing from her chair. Behind them the behemoth grunted as it picked itself up.

"Red...light…" Crecy managed to gasp out. "use...red…"

The Behemoth snarled, picked its blades from the floor and pawed at the ground like a bull getting ready to charge.

Samus smiled beneath her helmet as she stood up and faced the monster, before smashing down on the red button, having a good idea of what it was.

Power shut down throughout the ship, cloaking the room in darkness. Red emergency lights came on moments later and the behemoth covered its eyes and staggered backward. It growled in protest as it tried to look away from the red light all around it and the protective energy field around its hide flickered and died.

The halfbreed bounty hunter aimed her cannon at the behemoth, before firing her last three missiles, 'If he lives after this, I'll have nothing to defeat him with,' she thought, the missiles meeting their mark at the abominations head.

Brains coated the walls. A moment later the headless creature slumped to the floor and gently started to cool. Without the raging creature or the emergency alarm the ship suddenly seemed weirdly quiet. The illusion was broken as Crecy moaned in pain.

Samus immediately fell on her knees and looked at Crecy who was curled up in the fetal position, "Are you okay?" she asked, as she placed her hand on the bottom of Crecy's helmet, "We need to get out of here, before the gravity of the planet brings this station down to the planet surface,"

Crecy tried to smile, without success. With a shaking hand she pointed to a pouch on her belt, then to her exposed neck. Inside the pouch was a case with a medical cross and inside the case was a handful of syrettes filled with a translucent fluid. Her request was clear.

Samus grabbed one of said syrettes and lifted it to Crecy's neck, "This might hurt," She said, hoping that this would help Crecy, as she stabbed the needle into her exposed neck. She then pushed the plunger down, injecting the translucent fluid into Crecy's blood stream. Crecy tensed as the needle met skin but relaxed with a sigh as the dose took effect. She weakly pushed herself into a sitting position and chuckled quietly to herself.

"You were right. As soon as the alarm sounded they all abandoned ship like rats." she winced but then continued. "Damn, I really shouldn't have stayed jacked in that long." Samus continued to look down at her currently incapacitated partner. 'Partner?' she thought, before saying, "Are you going to be okay? I'm not going to have to carry you am I?"

"I'm fine, just give me a few minutes for the painkillers to take their full effect. Though it wouldn't hurt if you could give me a shoulder to lean on so I can walk." she added. She tried to raise herself onto unsteady feet, but she needed to lean against the wall just to stay upright.

Crecy felt an arm wrapped around her back that lifted her up slightly. "Okay, let get the civilians out then blow this place up," Samus said, smiling at beneath her helmet. The two walked forwards with Samus using her electronic map to find out where to go.

"I'm afraid that doctor guy I strangled for you got back up, or else he's got a twin who escaped on a shuttle." Crecy said as she hobbled along. "Next time I'll be sure to crush his windpipe properly."

Samus chose this time to use a bit of levity, "I never knew you cared so much," She said, smiling at Crecy as she continued to help her across the ship. She then suddenly remembered, "How are we supposed to get off this ship?"

"Well, you did save my life by getting me off that waystation." Crecy admitted, "As for getting off the ship I suppose we could just land the ship on our own, or call the Federation navy to come pick us up."

"We'll just have to call the federation," Samus said as she continued to semi-carry Crecy through the newly empty corridors, "The prisoners are on Deck 8, sector B" she said, as she finally figured out where the prisoners were by looking at her map.

"Yeah, got a glance of them while I was in the system. I just hope we stepped in before the pirates could do anything horrible to them."

It took about two hours for the Federation fleet to arrive. In those two hours the pirates that abandoned ship had long since jetted off back to whatever hole in space that they had crawled out of. Nevertheless, Federation marines were soon swarming the ship looking for any last holdouts of resistance and clearing the way for medical personnel to recover the civilians. Samus and Crecy by and large kept out of the way and let the marines go about their business.

The two looked on in silence as another squad of marines stormed pass them into the bowels of the ship. Crecy idly rubbed her neck near where she had been injected. After a while she looked over at Samus.

"Listen, I guess you're wondering why I had that epileptic fit earlier..." She didn't get a chance to elaborate, because a marine stepped up and cleared his throat.

"Excuse me Samus and...ma'am. The captain would like to speak with you two on the flagship. If you would follow me?"

"Ugh, nevermind. It can wait." she muttered as they followed the marine. He lead the way to a shuttle which took them over to the G.F.S. Yggdrasil. It was the newest of its kind and the pride of the border fleet.

The shuttle soon landed inside the flag ship. Samus and crecy then walked out of the shuttle and the bounty hunter was ready for another long-winded speech by a high ranking official for somehow doing her job wrong. She then remembered about Crecy, "Crecy, aren't you wanted?" she said, speaking to her via their radio link in their helmets.

"Not yet." Crecy replied in kind. "As far as the Federation is concerned, Crecy Archer is a private contractor with a class D corporate licence and an otherwise spotless record."

Samus looked at Crecy, "You really are amazing aren't you?" She said still chuckling, even though her posture outside of her suit remained the same as they kept walking to get to the captain's room. Crecy said nothing, just looked down at her feet as they walked.

Crecy and Samus then entered into a circular room with a semi-circular desk and a rotatory chair behind it. Sitting in said chair was a bald man with a small but bushy moustache and green eyes. He wore a regular uniform with the Captain's badge."Samus Aran, Crecy Archer I am here to thank you on behalf of the Galactic Federation and the people that you saved from the Space Pirates mothership." the man said. Samus was speechless as she looked at the captain, 'Someones actually thanking me for saving hundreds of people and not berating me for doing it.' She thought to herself.

The captain then got up and saluted them, "Samus, I know that you will be happy that we will be sending more patrols over that sector of space, as well as using the data we retrieved from the pirate base to help in the fight against them." He began before sitting down, "I hope that should the federation need such fine heroes, that you will risk your lives once again,"

"Well that was surprisingly painless." Crecy said as they were escorted off the bridge. "Yes, usually they're a lot more annoying," Samus said as she looked at Crecy before saying, "So, what happens now?"

"I guess I should call my boss, let him know what's happening, maybe get that money I promised forwarded to your account. You've more than earned it." she paused. "I could probably hitch a ride from the planet if you decide to kick me off here, but could I use your ship's long-range com before you decide? Normally I'd borrow the battleship's, but you know...security and all that."

Samus faced her, her emotionless visor facing her, "We'll have to get a ride to the surface first, but yes, you can use my ship to contact your company," She said, feeling almost insulted by Crecy believing that she would just leave her partner to hitch a ride with a complete stranger. ''Partner? Do I want her as a partner?'

It was a short shuttle ride back to the planet's surface where the Samus's ship was waiting. Crecy waved to the shuttle as it returned to the Yggdrasil after their errand. Then she removed her helmet and took a deep breath of the salty beach air. In a single breath she seemed to unwind to a state that she hadn't felt in weeks. She tossed her helmet to Samus underarm.

"I'm going to go make that call. It'll only take a few minutes."

Samus just stood outside her ship as Crecy went inside the spherical ship. The bounty hunter was then bathed in a bright white light, before her outer shell of armour disappeared, and she was left in her Zero suit. 'Do I want a partner? Could I allow someone else to have to do the same horrific things I have to do..?'

Waves crashed against the shore as she thought it over and turned her 'partner's' helmet over in her hands. The sun was starting to set, turning the whole sky a brilliant orange as if it were on fire. The blue suited beauty began to pace up and down as the light bathed over her warmly, 'Would Crecy even want to be my partner? She actually still thinks of paying me, even though she saved my life twice…' she continued to ponder, 'What if she says yes though?'

Crecy emerged from the ship. She had a perplexed look on her face but forced on a pleasant smile as she stepped onto the sand.

"Well, the money's been sent to your account. I can probably get a ship from Trice, but there's someone who'd like to talk to you if you're heading towards the Red Mountain colony. He didn't say why."

She took her helmet from Samus' unresisting hands. Samus nodded, her face remaining carefully neutral, "Crecy, I'll bring you to Trice," she said, before smiling at her, "and we'll go to the Red Mountain colony."

"Are you sure? It's a fair bit farther than Silicon Valley starport, and I don't really have a way to pay you for the fuel and such."

Samus just chuckled, an almost alien expression to her, "It's not like I have anywhere else to go.." she said, still smiling at her. Crecy hesitated, then smiled back.

"Well...thank you. Off to Red Mountain then!"


	5. Red Mountain

A/N: Thanks for everyone still reading this. Me and Fractured are wondering, if you want us to continue making a 'previously' for every chapter..

Previously: Samus met a spy called Crecy on the Space station and was convinced to allow her to come with , after getting a distress call from a nearby planet they descended upon it and found out it was the Space Pirates. After being captured by the space pirates Samus was brought to their space station and was freed by Crecy. They then saved the day. After that and being thanked by the GF, Samus decided to stick with Crecy and fly to the Red Mountain Colony and meet someone that Crecy thinks she needs to meet.

"It's because I've had experimental gene therapy." Crecy explained as they hurtled through space. She'd acquired some new clothes at their last stop and was currently chewing through a nutrient bar in the gunship's cramped galley.

"If you want to be able to directly interface with computers, you need an interpreter plate somewhere in your skull that can translate neural impulses into binary commands. Well, some scientists at the company I work for said, 'Hey, why not re-wire brains to understand computers rather than program computers to understand brains?'. Turns out, it's because neurons really don't like processing computer commands and you'll immediately get a migraine for your trouble. Worse, if you stay interfaced for too long you start getting bio-feedback and you can fall into a semi-epileptic state."

"It's not all bad though," she continued as she tossed the wrapper into a bin on the other side of the room. "If I keep this job for another five years, I get free upgrades once the technology is perfected and the genes go to retail."

Samus just looked at her with a jaw drop. She was wearing a similar outfit to Crecy's except with her infamous stun gun holstered at her waist., "..." she just looked at her completely speechless as she wanted to say so much about how what they did was immoral and illegal for that, but...Crecy didn't seem to mind it, so why should she. "Crecy...why did you let them do that to you?" She asked, softly, as her face slowly returned to it's naturally neutral appearance.

She seemed surprised by the question. "I volunteered for it. I just got out of college and this company was offering good money for human guinea pigs. I thought that the chance to get laser eyes or invulnerable skin was worth the risk."

The blue bounty hunter then tilted her head slightly, "You don't have laser eyes do you?" She asked, curiosity taking over intelligence. 'Considering she just said she 'thought' she doesn't have them' She thought, unknowingly saddened.

Crecy sighed. "No. It turns out that getting retinas to emit photons is really, really impractical. So how about you? I bet a bounty hunter like you could afford some really neat genes."

"No. I don't need anything," Samus replied as she then lay her shoulder on the armrest and leaned over to her, "because I know, that when the shit hits the fan I'll save the day somehow, no matter what it takes," She said proudly, looking strongly into her partner's eyes as she spoke.

Crecy faltered under the hunter's gaze and looked away as she picked up her mug of lukewarm tea, the one luxury she insisted on. "I don't doubt it. I just assumed you purchased upgrades because people whose parents could afford new genes for their kid from the womb don't tend to become bounty hunters. Er...no offence."

Samus looked at her wondering if she should tell her the truth about her 'parents'. "Crecy..." she began before saying sitting back in her chair, "my parents were murdered by space pirates when I was 5," she muttered, looking over at her.

Crecy's eyes widened. "Oh, I'm sorry. I had no idea."

The hunter looked away, "It's okay...I was saved by the Chozos and was taught how to become, what I am today," she said, frowning slightly as the memories of that night flooded back into her mind.

'_I guess that explains the picture with the Chozo I found earlier...'_ Crecy thought to herself as she stared down into her mug.

Samus and Crecy finally entered the atmosphere of the colonial planet: 'Red Mountain'. "Crecy, where am I to meet this person?" Samus asked, not knowing where to land her ship.

"Put us down in the tower district. I'll show you where to meet him once we land."

The gunship streaked over the dusty expanse of the colony. Before long the red mountain came into view, a giant mesa of red rock topped by a crown of massive glistening skyscrapers while at its base a patchwork of urban sprawl spread out in every direction. They received docking instructions and decelerated as they approached the tallest tower. A docking platform swung out on an arm for their convenience and retracted into a docking bay as they touched down.

Crecy zipped up her duffel bag and slung it over one shoulder. "Right. Headquarters actually isn't too far away. It's a shame I have to report in right away or else I'd show you the sights."

Samus just nodded and both exited the Cosmo Liner, "What kind of person is he/she?" she asked, wanting to at least have a clue of who she was going to meet.

"Ugh, they're all pretty much the same no matter which way you slice them. All concerned with doing things by the book and leaving the proper paper trail...except when you're supposed to keep everything in the dark. Then they'll chew you out if you leave so much as a bullet casing. They're not going to be happy that I had to cripple and abandon that courier ship they assigned to me, that's for sure."

She lead the way into a glass elevator that took them on an express trip down to the ground floor. Outside, the glistening gems of skyscraper windows started giving way to shadow and neon display screens as the towers started blotting out the sun.

Samus looked around, "Crecy...this is amazing.." she said, awed slightly by the view, "Did your company do all this?" she asked, having never been to Red Mountain.

"It's nice isn't it? Kind of like those really old cities back on Earth that have been built up over the centuries. Anyway we have a relatively small presence here, we just came in early enough to get our foot in the door." she pointed out the window up at a narrow silvery spire that dominated one of the few patches of sky they could still see. "See that big white needle? That's our headquarters. That's where we're heading to next."

Samus nodded, obviously impressed by Crecy's superiors. "What is your group called anyway?" She asked, wondering if she had heard of said group. 'What if it is some kind of human testing group?' She thought, knowing quite a few of those in her time.

"Well you're about to find out anyway. I work for the NuPlan corporation. 'We've got a Plan for a Nu you', as the jingle goes."

"NuPlan?" Samus asked slightly confused as she hadn't seen an advert in over 7 years, 'This company is sending out spies to federation space stations, is this company a front for the pirates?' she thought, looking over at Crecy, trying to be inconspicuous.

"Yeah. Normally we keep to ourselves on Earth and the other core Federation planets. If you've been out in the frontier for a long time you probably haven't seen hide nor hair of us for a while."

"Then why were you in the outer space station of the frontier?" Samus asked, hoping to get an explanation for both why she was out and why her company would be spying on the federation.

Crecy coughed and looked away, "I'm not allowed to discuss the details, but let's just say that we've got our fingers in a lot of pies."

The duo finally landed on the ground floor. The world outside of the elevator was filled with streets of glimmering gold and pillars that radiated a scarlet hue. Huge emerald rings encircled the towers that surround the paths, all showing news events or advertisements. The towers themselves seemed to reach for the sky and where of an art Deco nature.

Samus looked around clearly amazed, as she walked along with Crecy, because she had never been to a colony such as this one. Every planet she had come across were all decimated, utilitarian, or medieval. Crecy lead the way through the multi-colored streets. The populace were as colorful as the glowing lights with many strange designs in fashion, cybernetics, and other personal decoration. By comparison the two women seemed positively normal.

Before too long they arrived at the base of the white needle and the massive glass doors slid back for them noiselessly. Crecy approached the dark haired, clinically pretty woman at reception and flashed her security card.

"Crecy Archer, signing in."

The receptionist looked up impassively and tapped a few keystrokes. A soft click could be heard as an 'Employees Only' door nearby unlocked. Crecy took a slip of paper from a pocket and handed it to Samus.

"Give me a ring when you're done with Mr. Zenta. If I haven't been reassigned, we can go get drinks or something."

The receptionist looked up at Samus and regarded her without so much as a flicker of recognition. "And how may I help you madam?"

Samus took out the piece of paper and quickly scanned over it. It looked like a comlink number, "I'm Samus Aran," she said, hoping that the receptionist would know who wanted her, because she forgot to ask Crecy the name.

The receptionist's eyes widened in surprise before quickly vanishing again behind a mask of indifference. "Ah yes, Mr. Zenta did say you were expected."

With a 'ding' an elevator door slid open on the far side of the room as she continued. "Please take the elevator up to the top floor. I'll let him know that you're on your way."

Samus nodded and walked into the soon as the doors closed, she took out her stun gun and checked over it, making sure that it worked, before placing in back at her side. She closed her eyes and waited for the doors to open.

After several minutes the doors finally slid back and opened into a comfortable lounge, all velvet and aged wood furniture against white plastic. The half dozen business types that currently occupied the room halted their conversations and fixed her with inquisitive looks as she stepped off the elevator. She scarcely had a moment to breath the recycled air before a pair of double oak doors opposite opened and a woman who appeared identical to the receptionist downstairs-short dark hair, doll-like features and all-stepped out.

"Samus Aran. Mr. Zenta will see you now."

Samus looked around at all the businessmen, 'Typical,' she thought, 'Not a single woman.' She was then ushered into a semicircular office lit only by the planet's orange sun blazing away through the slits in the window that made up the opposing wall. It was difficult to make out Mr. Zenta's features as he hunched over his desk in the shadow of his tall-backed chair, fingers steepled in front of him. Nevertheless, she got a sense that he was middle aged but carried the weight of years that even the most advanced anti-aging treatments couldn't lift.

"Miss Aran, thank you for coming. Please have a seat. Alice, you may go." he said over her head to the lookalike.

"I'd prefer to stand," Samus said, putting her hands behind her back, "Mr. Zenta, why did you want me to come here?" she asked, looking down at the man in the chair.

"As you wish. I would like to thank you for getting our operative out of that little scrape, and moreover for nipping that pirate raid in the bud before any unpleasantness could result. I wish all my agents had your initiative. Anyway, I brought you here because I have a favor to ask of you."

Samus then crossed her arms across her back, radiating annoyance, "I already did you a favour," she said, glaring at the man, before turning ready to leave.

"Ah ah ah!" he held up a finger, "Didn't your mother ever tell you that in order to get you have to give? What you should be saying is, 'now that I've _given_ NuPlan their agent back, what will I _get_ for my generosity?'"

Samus stopped and turned to face him with a raised eyebrow, slightly intrigued. He then leaned forward, and his crystal blue eyes seemed to flash in the dim light. "So tell me miss Aran, what can the NuPlan corporation do for you?"

The bounty hunter thought for a moment, normally she would have already said, "No, I don't want anything," but her thoughts betrayed her. 'I wonder if he'd let me have Crecy as a partner..' she thought, before, blinking and looking at the man, "I want Crecy as a partner," she said, forcing herself to be entirely neutral.

Zenta sat back and drummed his fingers on his desk. "That's an...unusual request. Please understand that miss Archer currently has an exclusivity contract with us for another five years or so. Instead, we do produce some very sophisticated bioroids like the Alices you saw on your way in if you're after companionship and someone to manage your affairs. The new model even comes with bodyguard programing so they can watch your back in a fight."

"I don't want an 'Alice'" Samus said, before lifting her hand up, "If that's the best you can do,I'm just going to leave," She said, turning around again. A small frown crowned her face.

He sighed. "Well, if your heart is set on miss Archer, perhaps there is one thing we can do." The man began. Samus instantly turned around, her frown disappearing into neutrality yet again, "We can assign her to be your personal attache. We'll continue to pay her wages and she'll be under orders to assist you in whatever ways you see fit. Ultimately though, she will still report to us and will occasionally be called upon to run a little errand or two for us. Would this be an acceptable compromise?"

Samus nodded, "That is an acceptable compromise," she smiling outwardly now. 'I'm going to need to get extensions done in the Cosmo Liner and I'm going to have to show her how bounty hunting works' Samus thought inwardly, trying not to get too happy, about a getting a partner.

"Very well then, now onto business. Tell me, how much do you know about this colony? Did you know that many years ago a pirate base was situated the very mountain where we now stand?"

"No." Samus said, raising an eyebrow, "Why would you build a colony on such a planet?"

"I suppose the original colonists hoped to salvage whatever the pirates left behind when the Federation chased them away. Regardless, although the pirates are gone, their corruption persists. Crime is rampant down in the sprawl, and there are three particular individuals who have exacerbating the problem to dangerous levels. We will pay you well if you can take care of them for us."

Samus nodded, "Who. I'll need names, places and pictures," the bounty hunter said, putting her arms on the table and leaning over, "I'll need a report on what kind of crimes they've done and how dangerous they are,"

"I'll send their full dossiers with your new partner. Suffice to say that they are depraved, dangerous, and worth 250,000 each. Dead. Still, no match for the legendary Samus Aran I'm sure." he extended a hand. "Can I count on your assistance in this matter?"

Samus nodded, deciding not to shake the man's hand, "You can count on me," she said, "Send the Dossiers to my ship, I have to get changed," she said, before leaving the room and walking to the elevator.

Zenta turned in his chair and looked out over the city below.

"Best of luck miss Aran."


	6. Going undercover

A/N: Does anyone get the old British Science Fiction reference? If you do, review.

Chapter 6: Going undercover.

Previously: Samus found a spy called the Crecy and after saving a group of civilians from space pirates, both of them were thanks by the GF. They then went to a colony called Red mountain where Samus managed to get Crecy's employers to allow Crecy to become Samus' partner.

Samus had arrived back at the Cosmo Liner and had gotten into the shower, smiling as the warm water shot out at her defenceless skin. After cleaning all the sweat and grime off, she dried off and put on a pair of black jeans, a blue shirt and a gray windbreaker . She then walked out of the bathroom and sat down at the control console.

After a few minutes, the console beeped as she received an incoming call. Samus recognized the number as the same one from the slip of paper Crecy passed her earlier.

Samus pressed a button on the console that allowed the transmission to come through, "Hello Crecy," she said, her voice being very friendly. "Did you hear the good news?"

"I heard that Zenta gave you a job, and a pretty good paying at that." Crecy's cheerful voice replied. "They even asked me to help show you around and make sure you don't blow up the colony. Was that the good news you meant?"

Samus thought for a moment, 'he must not have told her I asked for her', "Yes, can you come back to the Cosmo Liner?" she asked, her voice growing a little bit cold.

If Crecy noticed the change in tone, her voice didn't show it. "Sure thing. I'll be there in ten minutes."

Ten minutes later Samus opened up the door that led to her ship, letting Crecy inside. "Hello Crecy, have you got the dossiers?" she asked, having finally put on her Chozo armor.

"I got them right here." She set an attache case down on the nearest flat surface and popped it open. "We've got our work cut out for us. We've got a Mr. Raleigh who's neck deep in human trafficking, a Mrs. Calliope, dealer in illegal weapons, and a familiar face, Dr. Galway, who tried to kill us with that Gemini monstrosity."

Samus nodded and looked at Crecy, "Crecy, we're going to get Mr Raleigh first," she said, angrily, as human trafficking was one of the worst crimes to her. "Crecy, did your boss tell you anything else?" she asked, offhandedly as she walked to the exit, trying to be inconspicuous.

"Just that I should expect this to be a long-term assignment." she replied. "Hang on a sec, are you going to wear your power armor for the investigation? Don't you think that will be a little suspicious?"

Samus faced her before thinking for a minute, "Good thinking Crecy," she said, light covering her entire suit as it disappeared yet again, leaving her in her casual clothes, "Much more inconspicuous?" Samus asked putting her hands to about shoulder height, exaggerating her point.

Crecy chuckled. "Much. Anyway, what's our starting point for tracking this guy down?"

"His last known location: the 'golden metroid' bar." Samus said, walking out of her ship, before saying, "Don't forget to get his picture."

"I've heard stories of the 'golden metroid'." Crecy said doubtfully as she slipped the picture into her breast pocket and followed Samus out. "They say that you can't even get in until you're wanted on at least three planets. If we're heading down there, I hope you know what you're getting us into."

She lead the way down to the rim of the mesa, where a number of elevators of various sizes shipped people and goods back and forth ceaselessly. Crecy stopped at a terminal to pay for a downwards ticket and before long they were heading down towards the sprawl. Outside the elevator windows the industrial cityscape stretched on and on, even under a layer of industrial smog. The orange sun was about to setting, and the lights of the city started turning on even as they watched.

"So, mind telling me what the plan is before we get there?" Crecy asked nonchalantly.

Samus looked at her, "Well, you said he was a slave trader," she said swallowing slightly, "Crecy, we can attack full on, but if we're going to do it stealthy, I'm going to need you to pretend you're my slave, I can then get close to this guy and get him outside, so that we can take him on without a hundred other people attacking us."

Crecy looked doubtful. "...Well, you're the boss. I don't know if it will be that easy to get this guy alone...but you're the bounty hunter here. I'll trust your judgement."

Samus nodded, "Thank you, if you can think of a better method, we'll do it, but this is the best plan I can come up with,"

They finally reached street level and the two stepped out into the crowded streets. Crecy flagged down an auto taxi and slid her card into the payment slot.

"Wyvern district." she told the car. "Wait! Hang on a second." she turned to Samus. "I hesitate to ask, but are we going to need any props for this whole master/slave thing?"

The bounty hunter stopped in her tracks, "..." she looked at Crecy, her face getting slightly red, "Yes..a few things.." she murmured.

Crecy sighed. "Tinsfield bazaar it is then."

They both piled into the taxi and it swiftly sped off. Crecy was noticeably quiet and tense as the streetlights went past in a blur, but before long they turned off a side road into a more run-down part of the sprawl and arrived at the bazaar. Really it was just a street where merchants crammed as many stalls and merchandise as they could fit rather than a proper marketplace, but it was their destination none-the-less.

"You can get just about anything here." Crecy explained as the auto taxi zoomed off, leaving the two of them in the warm glow of the bazaar's neon holographic lighting. "Early in my career I dropped off a secret package to a guy selling robotic pet squids. Anyway, would you like me to help carry your shopping mas-ter-?" she deliberately clipped the syllables.

Crecy's 'Master' looked around the bazaar for anything that looked slave-ish. The two walked about and would continually stop as Samus would look at something before moving onwards. The two finally stopped on something that Samus picked up: it was a dog lead. "Crecy?" she asked, looking at her with a faint blush.

Crecy gave her a sideways look. "Oh, you're not going for a shock collar?" she said, her voice thick with sarcasm.

The merchant jumped on this opportunity. "Oh the 'thunderband' deluxe shock collar can keep even the most ornery beast in line! From an angry dog up to a rampaging gadahox, the thunderband is perfect for any pet or beast of burden!"

Crecy gave Samus another sideways look. "You're the one in charge. Which one will it be?"

Samus looked at Crecy then at the merchant, "I'll take the shock collar," she breathed out, realizing that Slave sellers, would use something stronger than a lead. 'Okay, I hope this all goes well..' she thought, looking over at Crecy, wanting to see what she felt on the situation.

Crecy said nothing as they paid and flagged down another autotaxi for their final approach to the golden metroid. As they started getting close Crecy wordlessly fastened the shock collar around her neck and deliberately avoided her partner's gaze as she handed Samus the control device.

"Just...be gentle with that will you?" she said, scarcely more than a whisper.

Samus nodded, holding the controller in her hand. She looked at it with slight distaste, 'I may have to use this on Crecy, to prove I'm a slaver...Can I do it?' she pondered, before looking at her slightly smaller companion.

The taxi came to a full stop and they dismounted into the golden glow of a gigantic metroid hologram that was constantly projected over the doorway of their destination.

The two then walked to the entrance of said destination, before being stopped by a huge man, about 6ft9, with noticeably big biceps. He was wearing a tight fitting metal outfit, making him seem a bit bigger than he was. However the one thing that both of them noticed almost instantly was the big side arm attached to his left thigh and a small half-visor covering his left eye. "Name?" he asked, his deep voice seeming almost comical if it wasn't for the threatening gaze he was giving the two women.

"I am...Kerr Avon," Samus replied, thinking quickly, but saying 'I am' like it was a build up for an infamous name.

"Who?" The man asked his left hand gently gripping the gun in an almost unnoticeable manner, however, both Samus and Crecy noticed it. "I am a slave trader, this is my slave...Jenna Stannis" she said forcing an egotistical smile on her face, "She's the best slave on the market."

However, the bouncer looked unfazed, "I've never heard of you for all I know, you could be some bounty hunter or a cop," he said,, his hand tightening on his gun even more so. Samus then looked at Crecy, before pulling out the dog collar device out of her pocket, "Would a cop do this?" she asked, closing her eyes, as she pressed down on the button.

Crecy's entire body went stiff as the device around her neck started to thrumm. She started to shake and gasp something pained and unintelligible through clenched teeth and tried in vain to pull the collar off her with shaking hands.

The bounty hunter released her finger from the button as she collar stopped it's function. She looked at the man dead in the eyes, "Let me in," she said.

The man looked at the two before saying, "Go in, it'd be nice to have few girls in there," he said, standing back and letting them in. Samus gently grabbed Crecy by the shoulder before pulling her inside the club.

Crecy was still shaking as they entered. They were met by pounding music and flashing lights as if they stepped into a nightclub. The room was full of shady toughs and killer aliens, all of whom looked as likely as to slit their throats as say hello. Aside from them, a number of women and bioroids in slinky uniforms carried drinks and tried to attract the attentions of their least unpleasant customers.

Samus looked around, trying to distinguish her bounty's face from the dozens of other faces, "Can you see him?" she whispered to Crecy, scanning around the room as nonchalantly as she could.

"I guess he'd be in a VIP area. If he's here at all." she whispered back. Just then, one of the young red-headed waitresses came up to the two of them and flashed them a smile.

"Hello there, it's nice to see some new faces. I'm Violette, what is your pleasure this evening?"

"I'd like to go to the VIP area," Samus replied looking at the red-head, "I'm looking to make a sale," She said nudging her head in the direction of Crecy. She hated having to pretend that Crecy was just a 'thing' but, it was needed if she was going to be stealthy.

Violette bit her lip as she looked Crecy over. "I don't know...you can only get into the VIP by invitation. If you want to talk business you'll have to talk to Maxus." She pointed towards a large, forbidding, alien with a blood-red carapace and bug-like eyes who was sitting in a booth by himself watching a pair of dancing girls with satisfaction.

"Fine," Samus muttered, before dragging Crecy over to 'Maxus'. She looked at the two dancers with daggers in her eyes, "Maxus, I'm looking to sell my Slave to Mr Raleigh," She said, while nudging her head towards Crecy, indicating that she was said 'Slave.'

Maxus reluctantly rose from his seat and looked Crecy over, prodding here and tutting there as she visibly squirmed. Samus quickly slapped his hand away and said, "Hands off the merchandise," she said, trying to make it sound as if Crecy was just an object, "Only the owner can do that,"

"Hmm. She's not too useful for hard labor is she?" Maxus remarked. "Where did you find this one?"

Samus' face remained steady, though her mind was racing, 'Where is she from?', "I found after a pirate raid on Alpha Centauri." she said, looking back at him, "And she more of a..pleasure slave," she forced herself to say, the very thought of Crecy, or anyone for that matter, having to be one disgusted her.

Maxus frowned, or at least, his mandibles turned downwards. "Not much of a figure on her. Has she been used at all, or is she fresh?"

Samus looked at the man with crossed arms, "She's a virgin," she said somewhat angrily, "And she does have a good figure," she said with a defined frown.

"Well that's something at least." Maxus scratched his chitinous chin and appeared to come to some sort of decision. "Supposing Mr. Raleigh was looking for a new girl, what makes you think he'll want this one?"

Samus looked at him, thinking. 'Crap, why would they want Crecy? Oh yeah' she remembered, "She's been specially modified, she can move faster and harder. She even has a hacking node in her head," She said, smiling faintly.

Crecy shot her an annoyed look that seemed to say, "Why did you tell him _that?"_ Maxus meanwhile, seemed impressed.

"Well well, you certainly caught yourself a prize. Tell you what. I can pay you 5000 for the girl now, and if Raleigh wants her then you'll get a bit extra on top of that later. Minus a modest transaction fee of course."

Samus glanced at Crecy with a look that said, 'What do you think?'. Crecy mouthed the word "haggle". "Hmmm, thats a nice offer, but I bet I could get a better offer from Raleigh...How about if you let us see him and if he gives us less, I'll give her to your for 4000?" she asked, hoping that Maxus would agree to the deal.

"Hmm." Maxus seemed to raise an eyebrow as he mulled this over. "A lot of people want to meet mr. Raleigh. If you want to see him, give me 2500 now, and I'll see about arranging the time and place. Once we tell you, come promptly, bring your slave, and come alone. If anyone follows you, the deal's off."

"Deal," Samus said as she fished about her outfit for her wallet. 'I knew bringing this would come in handy' she thought before paying him the cash, "Thanks," she said, before grabbing Crecy's arm and walking out of the Golden Metroid.

The bounty hunter then turned to face Crecy as soon as they were out of earshot from the bouncer, "I'm sorry," she said, feeling guilty for electrocuting her and talking about her as if she were a mere object.

"You did what you had to do." Crecy sighed as she starting pulling at the collar. "I'd be perfectly happy to never play this part again though. I guess there's nothing to do now but wait I guess?"

"Yes," Samus said looking at Crecy, "Shall we go back to the Cosmo Liner?" she asked, ready to hail a taxi.

Crecy leaned her head against Samus' shoulder. "Yes, I'd like that very much."

Samus looked at Crecy and wrapped an arm around her, comfortingly. She then managed to hail one of the omnipresent taxi's, before entering with Crecy and speeding off back to the ship.


	7. The Deal?

Chapter 7: The deal?

A/N Fractured and I both own the Metroid games...Just not the rights to the games :(

Previously: After Samus and Crecy arrived at the space colony Red Mountain, Samus finally got to meet Crecy's boss: Zenta. Zenta then asked Samus to take down a few guys. In return Samus would get Credits and Crecy as a partner. Samus and Crecy went undercover to get a slaver. They managed to make an appointment with him and are waiting for him to contact them.

After 20 minutes of being in the autotaxi, the two women finally landed a few meters from Samus' famous (or infamous depending on the person) ship: The Cosmo Liner.

The blue bounty hunter walked briskly towards said ship, "Okay, Crecy, I'm going to go for a short nap," she said, smiling at her slightly. 'Your changing Samus' she thought to herself.

Crecy yawned and finally removed the collar from around her neck. "Yeah, me too. Have to look my best if I want to get sold." her playful tone started to return to her voice.

Samus turned to her, stopping momentarily to make sure she hadn't just imagined that. She then just chuckled as she looked at her, "Well, look who just perked up," the Chozo hybrid said while smiling at the augment.

"It's easy to be brave when you're not being poked and prodded by an alien that could take your head off with a single swipe." she replied with a shrug.

Samus was about to reply, "Would you prefer if I poked and prodded you" before shaking her head slightly, "I understand," she said a little unsteadily, 'Why the hell was I about to say that?' she thought, feeling a mix of fear and...an unknown emotion to her.

"Anyway, I need to call a friend and get some long-range support for tomorrow, or whenever this meeting is happening. Is it alright if I spend the night here?" Crecy asked.

Samus just nodded, deep in thought, "Sure," she muttered before entering her ship. As soon as she entered she went to her bedroom, before laying down on the bed 'Was that a flirtatious thought?' she pondered inwardly. She'd never had thoughts like that before, so it scared her slightly but also excited her in a way that was completely foreign.

Crecy came in a few minutes later and stifled another yawn. "Right, we've got some sniper support for the meeting. If everything goes south, at least we won't be on our own." she took off her jacket and laid down on the floor, using the garment as a pillow. "Good night Samus."

Samus looked down at her with a faint blush on her face, "Crecy...would you rather sleep on the bed with me?" She asked, moving over so that there was just enough room for another person.

Crecy chuckled. "First you ask me to be your slave, now you offer to share your bed. If you keep this up there's going to be talk. I'm fine down here, really."

Samus just nodded quickly, even though Crecy wouldn't be able to see the head movement. "Okay," She murmured, going back to her original position covering the bed. She then rested her head on her pillow and was deep in thought. She thought about the mission she had to do whenever she got contacted and she thought of Crecy. 'What if Raleigh doesn't contact us at all? We'll have to gun blazing...wait Crecy suit isn't as powerful as mine, she could get killed. I'll just have to leave her here so she doesn't get hurt...Wait, why am I risking my life for her, I mean, she's my friend and partner but...' she then shook her head, hoping to get rid of the thoughts. She forced the thoughts from her head before falling asleep.

Hours passed in the silent ship, the stillness broken only by the sounds of gentle breathing. After a while Crecy opened her eyes and silently rose to her feet. She crept over to the bed where Samus was sleeping and deftly picked up a loose strand of golden hair from her pillow. She returned to her makeshift cot and slipped the hair into a test tube in her coat pocket. She laid down and tried to get back to sleep, but after a while she had to drape a sleeve over her eyes to keep her gaze from drifting back towards that little picture on the bedside table.

Samus was awaken by an annoying and just audible beep. "What's that?" Samus murmured sleepily, rolling around in her bed slightly as she then wiped the sleep away from her eyes. The sound was coming from the cockpit, they were being hailed. Crecy meanwhile didn't seem to notice the sound and scarcely even stirred.

The bounty hunter quickly got out of her bed, still wiping away the sleep as she made her way to the cockpit, where the beeping was coming from. She discovered that the beeping was coming from her communications, 'So someone's calling me at this time of night?' she thought with a yawn. She then pressed the com button, allowing the transmission to come through. After a brief burst of static an image of text came through: a place, the Sangrail cafe, and a time, 10:00 am. She had just enough time to commit these two facts to memory before the signal cut off of its own accord.

Samus figured out that must have been the rendezvous from Mr Raleigh. She then checked the time, 2:45 AM. The bounty hunter then put on an alarm for 9:00 AM, before walking back to their bedroom. She took a few moments to look at Crecy, as she had never seen the woman asleep before. She was kinda cute when she slept, Samus then pushed a stray piece of hair out of Crecy's face, smiling as she realized Crecy had her mouth open when she slept.. The hero of the galaxy then got back into her bed and slept as if there was no tomorrow.

At exactly 9 AM a loud series of beeps erupted from the control console, making the slumbering Samus jump out of her bed and fell on top of Crecy being awoken by said beep. "Uhh...Crecy?" she asked, opening her eyes as she saw that she was on top of the other female.

"Oof! Okay okay, I'm getting up. You can get off me now." She gently pushed Samus off and rubbed her eyes. "Ugh, what time is it?"

Samus rubbed her own eyes as she faced her, "It's 9AM," She murmured, yawning as she slowly got to her feet. "We have to go to the Sangrail cafe at 10," She muttered, blinking away the sleep.

"Sangrail? Oh, I know where that place is. Kind of upscale for slavers to meet at though. Give me a second to jump through a shower and we can get going."

"Sure, but I need to get one after," Samus said, before sitting on her bed. She tried to think of a plan to get the bounty. 'Okay, we go in, talk for a few minutes, before changing into the Chozo suit,' she thought before remembering Crecy didn't have the same kind of armor, 'I'll take the gun and give it to her when I change into my armor..'

While she mulled over her options she could hear Crecy humm a nameless tune in the next room as she showered. Samus looked at the door, before unconsciously humming the same tune. Crecy came out a few minutes later, still buttoning up her old clothes and toweling the water out of her hair.

"You have any makeup I could borrow?Even though it's just a ruse, I still need to look sellable."

Samus shook her head, "No, I don't have any make-up. Never had to use it before," she said, looking at her before getting up and going to the bathroom. The bounty hunter closed the door, 'Don't want her to peek.' She turned the water on and, after undressing, got into the shower.

A small familiar hum radiated from the bathroom as Samus took 5 minutes to complete her shower. Soon after she exited wearing her new clothes with a towel wrapped around her hair similar to Crecy's. Crecy was currently doing a last check on her equipment, loading her tiny holdout pistol, slipping a narrow dagger into her boot, and finally holding up the shock collar.

"Would you like to do the honors?" she asked as she held the dread thing up. Samus looked at said device with distaste before taking it from Crecy and then put it around the spy's neck. "Crecy, the plan is that we're going to go to the rendezvous and while I'm talking I want you to look around for any hidden thugs that he's bought. After I finish talking to him, I'll look to you and I want you to say the number of people there is. After that, I'll throw you the gun and I'll put on my armor and we'll take him down,"

"Hard to screw up a simple plan." Crecy said as she handed Samus the shock controller. "Come on, we'd better get going."

Samus nodded as she put the shock controller into her pocket, "After, this we're going to go out for the day to do, shopping," she said, smiling at Crecy comfortably, still feeling a bit guilty using the shock collar the previous day.

"Careful now, I might hold you to that promise." Crecy said with a sly smile. "Now let's get going."

They arrived at the Sangrail cafe with about 15 minutes to spare. The cafe was on the 30th floor of the Atlas Spire, the second tallest tower in the colony and the hangout of choice for the colony elite.

Samus sat in a booth in the corner of the Cafe with Crecy seated right beside her. She looked around for anyone who looked out of place or suspicious, "Do you see anyone who would look like hired help?" She asked Crecy.

She had kept her eyes open, but aside from a handful of bodyguards no-one was carrying anything more lethal than a clandestine stunner. "I don't think they'd have us meet in such a public place if they wanted to start something violent." Before she could continue the thought she noticed the sounds of the cafe drop away, as if they were suddenly far off. She looked up and saw the reason, a small black disk attached to the light fixture.

"A privacy field…"

"That is correct miss Archer." An Alice unit said as it broke from the background buzz and sat down across from the two of them. "I am Alice unit 241. I run the front desk of the local NuPlan headquarters and I need your help miss Aran."

Samus looked at the Alice unit before sighing, "What do they need now?" she asked, with a small shrug. 'I'm already being their bounty hunter, what else could they need me for?' she pondered inwardly, knowing that the machine would tell her. However, she knew that in about 10 minutes she would ambush Mr Raleigh. "And hurry it up, we have a meeting in 10 minutes"

"I am not coming to you as a NuPlan representative, this is a personal matter." Alice 241 said. "I called you here because Raleigh is shipping off a number of my fellow Alice units through one of his subordinates. While it is not illegal to trade bioriods like myself, I wish to this shipment to be disrupted as a matter of ethics."

The bounty hunter tilted her head slightly to the side, before then shaking it, "I've never heard of a bioriod having ethics, no offence, but I assumed you were just mindless automatons that were used for manual labour"

Not a flicker of emotion showed on Alice's face. "Normally you would be correct. But my particular model has an enhanced capacity for learning and although our programming is rated below the standard for sentience, we believe that the test is purposely skewed. I would like you to extricate a number of my fellow models from the shipment that have achieved sapience."

Samus leaned onto the table, "Do these Alices have the same programming as you?" she asked, sitting back slightly, "Because if they don't, I don't see what your problem is." she said, wanting a bit more context. However, she knew that she would already help Alice, because the automaton needed her.

She nodded. "We are functionally identical. I was put on the front desk because I am the first from the series, and as such I suppose you could consider me their leader. Of sorts."

Crecy bit her lip. "It would be bad for business if people knew that NuPlan was selling sentients. But why are you trusting us with this? We're both NuPlan employees. Sorta." She added with a sideways glance towards Samus.

Samus looked at Crecy, "Because you're my friend and because I'm not going to allow sentient beings to be slaves," she said, looking directly as Crecy about to say something else. However, before she could Alice interrupted and said, "As it happens, your presence here is one of circumstance. I was looking for a bounty hunter, but when you came here you elected yourself as candidate for the job."

Said bounty hunter looked at the android, "Alice, I accept the job," she said sitting back with a nod, "After I take in Mr Raleigh, I will question him for the other Alices,"

"Before you run off, just tell me one thing. How did you know that we'd be here?" Crecy asked.

"Because I sent the communication." Alice explained simply. "I didn't want to risk making this offer over standard channels so I invited you here."

Samus looked at her, "So, we're not here by Mr Raleigh?" She asked, her eyes widening slightly in annoyance, "So we came here prepared to fight for our lives, forcing me to put the collar on Crecy?" She said, almost yelling, as she got pissed off a lot at Alice, "You couldn't just come to my ship and ask me?!" she put her hands on the table lifting herself up, unconsciously, looking rather intimidating as she moved closer to the Automaton.

Crecy put a hand on Samus's shoulder, thankful for the privacy field. "Relax, you couldn't have known." This calmed down Samus slightly as she sat back in her seat.

Alice blinked. "I was not aware that you were already expecting contact from Mr Raleigh. I'm sorry that I've caused you any distress."

Samus just nodded, "It's okay, Alice, I understand," she said with a small nod, before turning to Crecy and putting her hands on either side of the Spy's neck, "Crecy, let me take that damn thing off you,"

Crecy put on a teasing smile, making the bounty hunter blush when she said. "Aw, and I was just starting to like it."Nevertheless, she pulled down the collar of her coat, giving Samus easy access to the shock band.

Samus got a bit closer as so that she could unhook the hook at the back, "Well, I hate seeing you wear it…" she said her blush going away slowly, before pulling away, holding the collar in her hand.

"There was one more thing miss Aran." Alice said. "But it's something I wish to discuss in private."

Crecy rolled her eyes and stood up. "Fine, I get it. I'm going to go powder my nose." she stepped through the privacy field, leaving the two alone.

Alice leaned forward. "Miss Aran, I'm not entirely sure what your _modus operandi_ is, but I suggest you change it for the duration of this mission. Though Crecy is not above par in comparison to her fellow operatives, she is still a significant investment in time and money-" however, Samus interrupted her.

"Is Crecy just a _**THING **_to your company?! She's a living breathing human with feelings and friends! I don't care if she was the worst of all your operatives, I'd take her as a partner every time!" Samus yelled smacking her hand on the table, letting loose on this machine, who was talking about Crecy as if she were just a gun to shoot down the company's enemies.

Alice was quiet for a moment. Eventually she said, "About a year ago, you and three other bounty hunters were hired by the Galactic Federation for an undisclosed mission. Some months later, you returned to service, but only you. We just want to make sure that miss Archer survives this mission."

The bounty hunter was silent as she realized that her anger was a bit displaced. Alice was just showing that the company, as well as maybe herself, cared about Crecy. After a few seconds and Samus licking her lips she replied, "Alice, I have done many things.I've killed over a thousand space pirates, I've stopped sentient viruses, I've defeated a giant dragon over 8 times," she then leaned over so that Alice could see the cold hard look of determination in her eyes as she said "I **will**make sure that Crecy comes back."

Alice nodded. "That's all I'm asking."

Samus let out a breath, shaking her head slightly as she tried to get rid of the emotions shooting through her head.

After a few minutes Crecy returned and took her seat next to Samus. She cleared her throat as the other two didn't say anything and eventually ventured, "So, what does it take to get some service here?"


	8. The Volition

Chapter 8: The Volition

Previously:After Samus and Crecy arrived at the space colony Red Mountain, Samus finally got to meet Crecy's boss: Zenta. Zenta then asked Samus to take down a few guys. In return Samus would get Credits and Crecy as a partner. Samus and Crecy went undercover to get a slaver called Raleigh. They managed to make an appointment with him and are waiting for him to contact them. The next night Samus gets a transmission to go to a cafe. Both Samus and Crecy believe this to be a transmission from Raleigh. However when they get there it turns out, the transmission came from an Alice unit (A sentient android working for NuPlan), who wants them to find some other Alice units that Raleigh was going to sell as slaves.

Samus sighed and stretched. Crecy had insisted that she would be able to find out what ship was set to transport the consignment of bioroids using the NuPlan databanks and had left with Alice to do some data-mining at their headquarters. For a while at least, it looked like Samus had some time to herself.

Samus did what she always did when she had free time: She checked the Extranet for bounties. She found that the only bounties where either barely worth it or where on far off colonies. She sighed again as she sat on her bed, 'Maybe I can install that new AI the federation keep badgering me about' she thought before heading to cockpit.

After sitting down at the cockpit, the bounty hunter rapidly tapped on the keyboard surrounding her before inserting a small disk into it. 'I hope this AI isn't going to be as irritating as the usual ones' she thought as a small whirring sound radiated from the console.

"Mistress, I am installed," A voice erupted from the walls around her. Said voice, was a masculine one, but it sounded different that the usual emotionless AI's. It seemed to emanate a sort of camaraderie and respect for the hybrid. "Good, now run a diagnostic on the ship, make sure it's at optimal efficiency," she said, rather boredly.

During the process of running a diagnostic, Samus went back to bed and lay down, 'Might as well catch up on some sleep' she thought, as she lay back and closed her eyes. No sooner had her head touched the pillow than the com beeped and the AI helpfully chimed, "Mistress, we are being hailed." "Who by?" Samus sighed out, 'whenever I want something to do, I've got nothing to do, but when I want to rest, everyone calls me,' she thought, annoyed by the disturbance, "Is it Crecy?" she asked, semi-hopeful.

"Mistress, the number corresponds to the NuPlan research offices." it answered. The bounty hunter pondered why they would be calling, 'Maybe it's the Alice unit? Then again it could be Crecy calling from NuPlan,' she thought before actually saying, "Put it through." She then realized one of the few advantages of the AI. She could both answer and respond to transmissions in her bedroom

"Hey Samus, guess what, we found the ship." Crecy's cheerful voice came through. "It's a tramp freighter called the _Volition_, and its grounded in the sprawl's starport until the owner's cyrogenic cargo licence is finished being renewed. If we're lucky, the cargo should already be loaded on board. You got your equipment nearby?"

Samus smiled before saying, "Yes, do you need me to pick you up?" she asked, getting out of her bed, "and which bay is it in?" she asked, leaving the room and entering the cockpit.

"No, just sit tight and I'll come to you. I need to pick up my infiltration gear but I'll transmit the information I found to you."

After a moment the AI chimed again. "Mistress, the data has received and downloaded."

"Who was that?" Crecy asked, a hint of concern in her voice.

"The ship's AI," Samus replied hearing the concern, "I installed it before you called," she replied, 'Should I call him something?' she pondered inwardly. "Anyway, I'll meet you there," the bounty hunter said, "Bye, end transmission." The human/chozo hybrid waited as she sat on her chair, overlooking the bay. Crecy arrived not long later wearing the same stealth armor she was wearing when they first met. Under one arm she had a satchel of equipment.

"Right, put us down in the sprawl starport and I'll see about disrupting the security system long enough for you to get in and get the cargo out." She said as she set her extra equipment down.

"Yes, Crecy Archer of NuPlan," The AI responded instead of Samus. The ship then rose up and began to move towards said destination. Samus turned to Crecy, "Well, it appears I no longer need to pilot.." she muttered slightly annoyed. "Mistress, if you would prefer I could turn off my functions for piloting the Cosmo Liner." the AI replied.

"Thanks Adam," Samus said softly as she turned to face the console.

"Adam?" Crecy asked Samus as they approached their destination.

"An old, dear, friend," Samus replied, seemingly both tired and sad. She looked down, hoping that Crecy didn't want to talk more on the subject. She looked at the glass, remembering the man, her friend, sacrificing himself to destroy the metroids and the feeling of being unable to help. 'I won't let that happen to crecy'. Crecy seemed to take the hint and didn't press the issue further. Before too long they touched down in the starport, and it was clear just by looking that the facilities were not as fancy as the massive tower that harbored ships in the tower district. Everything seemed to have a thin veneer of rust and years of wear.

"Alright Adam, do you have any electronic warfare capability?" Crecy asked as she rummaged through her satchel. "I have weak electronic warfare capability, Miss Archer, I will be able to stop wayward hackers but not professionals. Why do you ask?"

Crecy pulled something out of her bag. It was a plastic, spike-shaped device which she slid into one of the ship's data port. "I'm going to disrupt their security. I've plugged in some auxiliary help, but you might want to shut down non-essential systems. We're going to need all the runtime you can give me." As soon as Crecy finished, all the lights turned off and the door shut off, The only light coming from the buttons on the console, "Power off in all sectors of the ship, Mistresses," Adam replied, a small almost unnoticeable bit of smugness in his voice.

Samus got off of her seat, allowing Crecy to sit in it, so that the spy could hack into the security systems. Crecy wordlessly took the seat and immediately started fiddling with the controls.

"Okay, once we're in the system we'll have anywhere between five minutes and an hour before anyone notices the intrusion. I'll take care of the security, Adam, can you guide Samus towards the _Volition_?"

"Yes, Miss Archer," The AI replied, "The Volition is currently 50 meters in a north-by-northeast direction"

"Aaaaand we're in!" Crecy said triumphantly as the dataspike plugged into the console began to hum. "Be quick Samus, and good luck getting those Alices out."

Samus nodded and just before she left she said, "Adam, If I don't come back in 20 minutes take off without me, no matter what Crecy says, go to the NuPlan headquarters" she said, leaving fast enough that the AI couldn't reply. The hunter then ran towards where she assumed the Volition was and readied her weapons. She came to a heavy metal blast door that separated the individual bays where each ship was kept. A security camera up near the door rotated down to watch her and the door started ponderously opening up for her. Beyond was a small passenger liner rather than the freighter she was hoping for. She could just make out one or two heads turn her way through the liner's windows.

"Continue north, Mistress." Adam chimed through her com. "The Volition should be in the next compartment over." Samus walked towards the Volition, softening her footsteps so that they were almost inaudible. As soon as she got to the Volitions closed loading ramp, she banged on it loudly, hoping for the pirates to open it.

"Doesn't look like anyone's home." Crecy said over the com. "Hang on, I've got an idea."

There was a whir of machinery and a thick hose supported by a crane ponderously swung out of the nearby wall. "If you can hook up the fuel pump to their input valve, I should be able to get into their system that way." Samus wordlessly did what she was ordered, attaching the input valve into the fuel pump.

Back in the ship Crecy's dataspike suddenly started making unhealthy whirring and clicking sounds as it started fighting off some nasty defense software. Whoever owned this ship, he was no small-time smuggler that was for sure.

The ramp started lowering with a gush of steam from aging servos, inviting her into the dark stillness beyond.

"I don't know how long I'll have control. Be quick in there."

Samus swiftly ran in, the darkness engulfing her as the ramp slowly closed over. Soon after she saw a few lights being pointed at her, followed by a few plasma rounds. Samus managed to dodge a few of them but one managed to hit her foot, however, she managed to fire her cannon and managed to kill one of the attackers. The ship was small and the corridors cramped so her opponents took cover in nearby doorways and took blind potshots at her, heedless of any damage to their cargo.

On either side of Samus was a row of eight cryotubes, if each was full that counted for sixteen quasi legal bioroids in all. One shot grazed the glass of the tube next to her, vaporizing the thin layer of frost and giving her a glimpse of the sleeping Alice inside.

Samus fired at either side of the door as she walking forward, hoping that they wouldn't shoot at any of the Alices. She managed to get to the door and as the two enemies got out of cover to shoot at her, she shot the one on the left and grabbed the other one's throat and instantly crushed it. The remaining opponents retreated further into the ship and a sealed a heavy metal door behind them. Back on the Cosmo Liner, the dataspike started getting alarmingly hot as the sounds of its hardware screamed ever louder.

"Miss Archer, Samus is calling," Adam said as he put through the transmission from the bounty hunter, "Crecy, can you open this door?" She asked as she scanned the door, trying to find a way to open/destroy it.

"Leave them be, the dataspike can only hold their firewalls at bay for so long. We need to get those bioroids out before the defenses come back online and a patrol is sent to investigate."

Samus sighed before scanning the Cryotube, "Adam, bring the ship closer," she said as she punched through the glass tube containing one of the frozen Alices, a huge fog shooting up from the hole as the machine deactivated.

As the gunship rose up, the dataspike finally burst in a shower of sparks. Crecy swore.

"Samus, you're about to have company!" scarcely a moment later a defense turret lowered from its hatch and focussed down on Samus. Said bounty hunter rolled out of the way as the turret fired a volley of lasers at her before she fired a charged plasma blast at it, disintegrating it. "Crecy, I'm going to need you to open the landing ramp!" Samus yelled as she began to break the glass tubes one by one as the Alice Units slowly reactivated.

"You heard her Adam!" Crecy yelled as she pulled her helmet on and sprinted towards the back of the ship. The ships door opened, showing the spy the ground 20 meters below her. However, before Crecy could do jump down the door closed suddenly. "Twe-Twe-Twe-Twen, Mi-Mi-Minutes Pa-Pa-Passed!" Adam screeched, his voice distorted as the ship jerked forward, Crecy had to grab a hold of a railing to avoid being thrown out the back. "Crecy, hurry up and open the door!" Samus yelled into the com, gunshots being heard in the background.

"Something's wrong with Adam!" Crecy announced as she dashed to the cockpit. "Adam, shut down and give me manual, we need to get Samus out of there." "Un-Un-Unable, Miss-Miss-Mistress commanded," The distorted voice of Adam stated as a group of around 20 of Raleigh's men surrounded the Volition's ramp. "Good job Crecy," Samus said through the transmission as the ramp began to open up.

"Your 'Mistress' is going to be in serious trouble if we don't get back there you stupid piece of software!" Crecy railed at the AI. She didn't doubt that Samus could handle herself, but she was on her own in the sprawl where Raleigh's men and worse owned the streets with a dozen or more defenseless bioroids in her custody. Who knew what dirty tricks the crimelord or any of his buddies could hit her with before she got back to safety?

"Ooorrr-oore-oorrd- derrrs-orders," The disrupted AI said as the ship then careened northbound towards NuPlan head quarters, "Crecy whats hap-?" Samus questioned before the transmission was cut off by Crecy going out of range. Crecy punched the console as hard as she could. All it did was make the lights in the cockpit turn off, leaving the only light coming from the viewscreen.


	9. Bloodied, but not broken

Chapter 9:Bloodied, but not broken

Previously: After being asked from NuPlan (a genetics company) and an Alice Unit (an android with near

A/N; Fractured Sanity wrote 98% of this chapter, so ALL HAIL FRACTURED! Also, due to the coming summer, we will be slowing down with the chapters.

sentience) both Samus and Crecy went to save more Alice units and to capture Mr Raleigh (a slave trader). However, after they landed and Samus managed to get inside Mr Raleighs freighter thanks Adam (Samus' ship AI) who, with Crecy, hacked into the freighter. However, the ship took off whenever Samus was being surrounded by guards, both because of Samus ordering Adam to leave her behind if she didn't come back in 20 minutes and something went wrong with the AI.

"Adam, shut up and run a self-diagnostic." Crecy snapped as she tried to use the ships controls. She tried to distract herself from the pain in her hand by tracking their position higher and higher into the atmosphere. At this rate they would sail right over the towers and end up in orbit.

"Diagn-Diagnost-Diagnostic Ru-Run-Running" The distorted voice replied and after a few minutes the ship slowed to a stop, "How may I help you, Mistress Crecy?" it asked after a few moments.

"Report on diagnostic results." She tried the controls again to no avail. Despite the semi-reset the controls were still locked to autopilot. "A virus has been detected and contained"

"Any damage?" Crecy asked before she felt the ship make a quick jerk upwards, "It has taken over the autopilot and disabled the communication system, Mistress, I need you to fix it for I am unable to Mistress."

"God damn it…where is it taking us?"

Adam was silent for a moment, "It's taking us into the nearest star, Mistress." there was a noticeable amount of worry in the AI's voice, however it wasn't for it, but for the only occupant of the ship.

"Okay, okay." Crecy took a deep breath. It looked like she was going to have to plug in whether she liked it or not. "Adam, I'm going to see what I can do about fixing the virus. As soon as you can use the coms, contact NuPlan and give them the code phrase 'cherry picker'. When you have the engines again put us down on the white needle's landing pad. Do you think you can do that?"

"I will try to do that, Mistress," Adam replied, unaware if she would be able to completely eradicate the virus.

Crecy removed her helmet and set it by her side as she uncoiled her jack cable. She took another deep breath as she pulled her hair out of the way of the socket in the back of her neck.

"Well, here goes nothing." she muttered to herself.

When she opened her eyes again the stream of white-hot data painfully assaulting her neurons drew countless white threads of code across her mind's eye. She tried to keep the pain at bay as she drifted through the ship's programming looking for signs of damage. She became increasingly aware of Adam's presence as a mind-numbingly complex latticework of of blue code-threads overhead tied to the ship at key points like some sort of giant ethereal jellyfish.

"You appear to be in pain Mistress. Are you alright?" he asked directly into her brain in a fresh lance of pain.

"Shut up!" she set her eyes on the damage around the coms: a red bulge choking the threads connected to the radio. It was a simple matter to wipe that block away, but merely touching the red virus-code momentarily put a new sharpness to her headache. That had never happened before but she didn't have time to dwell on that. If she didn't repair the navigation soon, she'd go epileptic and the medics would never catch up to them.

She drifted further through the ship with an ever worsening headache before she found the source of the problem. Trapped in a cage of Adam's blue threads was the virus, a prickly red star-shaped…thing that she could swear was looking at her with a predatory menace as she passed by. Not too far away was the virus's handiwork: a tangle of red threads tying control of the engines to another red bulge. She summoned all her concentration and cut through the virus's code while avoiding damage to the ship's original programing. The work took crucial minutes, but she still needed to get rid of that node in case it tried to undo her repairs.

She reached out to brush it away like the other one, but as it disintegrated it seemed to absorb into her and her pain suddenly jumped to an unthinkable burning.

She was barely able to think when she yanked the cable from the back of her skull. Her head was a ball of eye melting agony and she tried to scream in agony through clenched teeth. Her limbs twitched and jerked beyond her control but she was barely conscious of anything besides the unending agony inside her head. Time itself dropped away and it might have been days or years later when she felt a pick in the side of her neck and the sharp edge of the pain was sucked away.

Her eyes managed to focus enough to see a familiar face knotted with focus and concern.

"Doctor Calloway…"

"Hush, hush." the matronly doctor crooned. "It's going to be all right now. Are you okay?"

"Sprawl starport, I have to get back there." Crecy managed to force out through the remaining pain and the haze of medicine.

"You're in no state to go anywhere. We'll send Cravant to clean up." the doctor said soothingly. She turned and barked to her assistant. "She's still in a stage 4 state, give her another dose of the sedative."

The soft white lights of the tower's hospital wing greeted Crecy when she woke up again. She still had a migraine, but it felt dull and distant behind the fuzzy sensation from whatever was in her veins. She sat up and checked her watch. She hadn't been out long, it was only about four and a half hours since they had started their infiltration at the starport. Then she noticed a brown envelope on the table by her bed, which she immediately opened.

She recognized the precise and curt writing of the company's top sniper anywhere.

_Investigated starport. Locked down because of firefight, security cordon around Mission class freighter Volition. Signs of protracted battle with plasma weaponry [see photographs] and several pieces of metal of unknown alloy retrieved from site. [see enclosed]_

Aside from the note was a number of photographs. They showed scenes of carnage. Dead bodies, some burned beyond recognition, black scars and craters pocked the scene of the battle, and pools and stains of mysterious fluid across the floor and walls where stray shots had struck important hoses and machinery.

Finally, at the bottom of the envelope was a piece of glossy red metal with a shard of opaque green glass, both were partially blackened by soot. Crecy felt a pinch in her throat as she realized that these pieces were about the right size to be part of a familiar helmet.

Something splashed against the metal in her hands. She blinked in surprise as she realized she was crying.

"Oh good, you're awake!" Dr. Calloway said as she came into the ward. She had a look of relief on her face as she entered but it was quickly replaced with one of concern as she saw Crecy crying. She crossed the room and took a seat next to her and ran a hand through Crecy's pale hair with motherly tenderness. "Are you okay? Why are you crying?"

"I...I don't know." Crecy said quietly as she wiped the tears away.

Dr. Calloway had not seen her react like this since that awful business on S4-21, the last time she had ever worked with a partner. She gently put an arm around her and let the girl rest her head on her shoulder as more tears came to the surface.

However,, the moment ended when the doctors communicator beeped and a male voice yelled, "Doctor, you need to get down here right away!"

She reluctantly stood and raised her communicator. "I'm on my way. What's wrong?"

"There's a woman down here, who's got 2nd degree burns," He stated, before whispering "And she's come wth 8 Alice Units."

Crecy sat bolt upright as she heard that last bit. "Sh-she's alive?!"

The doctor gently eased her back down. "Crecy, you need to rest. The sooner you're better the sooner you can see her. Okay?"

"Okay…" Crecy reluctantly agreed. Dr. Calloway ruffled Crecy's hair and left to attend to the newest patient and her eight bioroids..

They brought Samus up on a stretcher a few minutes later, but she had to look twice to be sure. Her zero suit had been cut, burnt, and ripped to pieces, and what was exposed had been covered in white medical dressings and gels that were slowly turning red. The doctors were muttering to themselves in severe and worried tones. One doctor lifted a bandage from around Samus's face to reveal-

Crecy had to look away. She felt like she'd been punched in the gut. She'd seen her share of mangled bodies, made more than a few too, but that…by god she could see bone!

She kept her eyes shut through the whole process. The only consolation was that she overheard one of the doctors say, "It's a good thing we've already got her DNA on file."

Well, she felt a little less guilty about that little incident anyway.

"Cr...Crecy?" An inhuman voice gasped out, which came from the vicinity of Samus. A shiver ran down Crecy's spine. One of the doctors shushed Samus before saying, "You'll only do yourself more damage." However, the voice forced a raspy sentence out, "I..I am...sorry."

A nurse came in from the next room and spoke to the doctors. "Her tank is ready." They lifted the stretcher up and took it to the extensive care growth tanks, leaving the room ominously silent in their absence.

Some silent minutes passed, but Dr. Calloway returned and sat at the foot of Crecy's bed. "Your friend's going to be all right. In a day or two, she'll come out of that room as good as new." when Crecy said nothing she continued, "They were saying that she dragged herself to the front steps all the way from the rim. That's pretty amazing."

"She's an amazing woman." Crecy agreed quietly. The doctor remained silent before saying, "Crecy, if it helps, she won't have any physical scars...But we won't know how mentally fit she'll be until she's fully healed."

Crecy rolled over and looked at the doctor. She started to say something, then stopped. She looked up at the ceiling and eventually said, "You remember Caen?"

The doctor nodded slowly, a noticeable frown on her face, "Of course I do…" she uttered, softly.

"I'm not going to let that happen again."


	10. Samus Aran-Life is cruel

Chapter 10: Samus Aran-Life is cruel.

A/N: Zenorac was kind enough to return the favor and wrote the majority of this chapter. Hats off to you Zen!

A/N pt2: We re-wrote the ending to this chapter as I, Overlord Zenorac, decided to as it seemed a bit iffy to me. I hope you enjoy it more than the original. Arigato

Previously: After being asked from NuPlan (a genetics company) and an Alice Unit (an android with near sentience) both Samus and Crecy went to save more Alice units and to capture Mr Raleigh (a slave trader). However, after they landed and Samus managed to get inside Mr Raleighs freighter thanks Adam (Samus' ship AI) who, with Crecy, hacked into the freighter. However, the ship took off whenever Samus was being surrounded by guards, both because of Samus ordering Adam to leave her behind if she didn't come back in 20 minutes and a virus took that over the ship. After Crecy managed to get rid of the virus, the virus entered her, however she was saved by the NuPlan doctors. After a few hours Samus returned, severely burned and beaten, with the Alice units, before being put into a healing tube.

'You can stop fighting, you can finally finish saving the universe...others will do it for you..' Samus thought as she felt her body weakening, before being drenched in a warm liquid. 'No, you must fight...for the universe, for Adam...For Crecy' she thought as the liquid careened up her body. before finally covering her head.

The doctors looked on as Samus was lowered into the growth tank, before then pressing the needed buttons to begin the process of healing. The liquid would accelerate and even exceed the body's usual healing abilities and regenerate the dead skin and speed up blood creation.

As the laborious task of consciousness left the bounty hunter she dreamt away of times gone by...

* * *

"Hello, I'm Samus Aran, 3 years old," A small, unremarkable, blond female child said. However the being it was talking to was quite remarkable, being that it was a chozo, quite an old looking chozo to be precise."Want to be my friend?" Samus asked, smiling as her eye seemed to dazzle from the hovering sun. "I am called old bird, but you may call me Tori Oji-chan if you like," The chozo replied, it's beak curving slightly imitating the smile., "And yes, I would be delighted."

"Why're you here?" The inquisitive Samus asked, looking and following as the giant blue bird began to move. The bird looked down at her, still retaining that beak-y smile, "I am here with some others trying to get Afloraltite," he said, his smile lowering slightly. "Why's that choji ogy-dan?" Samus asked, eliciting a small chuckle from the chozo, "It's just a mineral we'd like," he said, hoping to get off that topic. "Samus, you're quite unusual," He began as he stopped, the small girl stopping beside him, "Usually, the human children are afraid by our appearance, yet you're not," Tori said, more or less asking her why she wasn't afraid.

Samus just grinned before saying, "Because, you ain't scary, you look kinda funny with a beard and you have hairy eyebrooows," she giggled, as she pointed as the Chozo's small wispy beard. Tori raised his eyebrow, "Oh," he said his smile growing slightly, "Well, thank you."

"Samus?!" A female voice yelled out, catching the two by surprise, "It's mommy," Samus said with a smile, "Sorry, Grandpa, I've got to go home," she told Old Bird, before then turning and skipping back away to home.

* * *

Samus saw a huge freighter descend from the sky like a heavenly host before touching the ground. However, everyone around her were yelling loudly and panickedly, "SPACE PIRATES!" as the small girl walked closer to the ship, 'Whats a space pirate?' Samus thought as she saw a door on the ship open before a ramp came out and lowered itself to the ground.

A large shadow fell upon her as she saw something leave the space craft. The shadow was very big with lanky limbs and 2 giant wings. The being that Samus now classified as a 'Draggy-waggy'. The little girl just smiled as the dragon walked down, followed by a number of big bug like creatures. The dragon stood in front of her as the group of minions stood on either side of him.

It was at this time that Samus' mother noticed that her daughter was missing and went out to look for her.

"Can I be your friend?" Samus asked the huge dragon, before putting her hand out to him. The minions began to laugh loudly as they saw the dragon roar out in anger and embarrassment. Samus' mother finally found her daughter and ran for her, "Samus!" she yelled, seeing that the space pirates surrounded her little girl.

The little girl saw a pretty flame appear in the Dragons mouth. It felt really warm. She turned to see her mother behind her."Hey mommy, this is my frie-" she began, before her mother jumped on top of Samus covering her body as Ridley's flames cascaded down on top of her mother. Both the rancid smell of burning flesh and the severe temperature made the little girl lose what consciousness she had left.

* * *

"Grandpa, you summoned me," The 14 year old, chozo suited, Samus said as she kneeled down to her foster father after 'It' happened. "Samus," Old bird began as he walked over and gently touched her left big, spherical metal shoulder, "the council needs you to go out to the Celloian Valley and destroy the Badger Grove plants that are their." he said, smiling gently down at her. Samus rose up and nodded before then asking with a small tilt of her helmet covered head, "I will do it but, can I ask why?"

Her 'Grandpa' nodded as he turned around and sat on a small, but comfortable, cushion. "Samus, the Badger Groves are poisoning and corrupting the land, making other lifeforms follow the space pirates," He stated, knowing that the super suit would protect her from the poisonous pollen. An angry frown appeared across her helmet covered face, "I will return, after I've done it," she stated, her voice staying it neutral tone, as to not show her emotions.

After a few hours of walking, Samus arrived at the Celloian Valley and saw the entire expanse of land covered in the violet coloured plant. Samus also noticed the 30 odd butterfly looking creatures known as the Ion-Faeria, who were flying above the ground. Samus then began to eradicate the vast amount of flowers by using her hand-cannon. However, whenever she was a quarter of the way through it a small group of around 5 Ion-Faeria flew closer to her, before abruptly slamming themselves into her, making the armored 14 year old girl stumble slightly from the force.

"What?" she asked out loud as the group went to hit her again, however she jumped out of the way before the could attack her. 'They must be corrupted by the plants...' Samus deduced, due to the usual docile nature of the butterfly like creatures. Her face saddened as she knew that she would have to kill them. Samus then ran forwards grabbing one of them by the tail, easily outrunning the group. She then put the butterfly to ground, 'shh-ing' slightly as her hand went to the creatures head, "It's okay...It's okay...You're going to a better place," she whispered to it, before quickly twisting her hand and breaking the poor creatures neck.

She repeated this process another 4 times, each time saying comforting words as her voice trembled after having to kill such innocent and beautiful beings. She took a deep breath before returning to her job, hoping that she could kill the rest of these plants, so that the rest of the Ion-Faeria wouldn't get infected.

However, as murphy law states 'Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.' Every single Ion-Faeria had been infected. Several hours later a depressed Samus returned to the chozo base. She walked past chozo after chozo, ignoring everything as she only wanted to tell Grandpa the mission was done and then go to bed.

Old Bird sat where he was originally as the armor suited hybrid kneeled before him, "I have finished the mission, Grandpa," she said, her voice having trace amounts of sadness and exasperation. "Samus, are you okay?" the chozo asked, his tallon-like-hand going to her cylindrical shoulder and gently holding it, trying to comfort her. "No...I had to kill all the Ion-Faeria in that valley," Samus replied, her voice cracking as she suddenly found the brick-layered floor to be very interesting. "I saw what you did Samus…" The Chozo began, making Samus tense under her suit.'He's not going to make me kill more Ion-Faeria is he?" the soon to be hunter thought in dread. "...and we are very proud of you for showing such sympathy for them."

* * *

A now 20 year old Samus received a distress call from Zebes, the planet that she was raised on since she was 3. 'I hope grandpa's okay' she thought, as her helmet like spacecraft landed on the surface near one of the bases. She then exited her ship, taking care to scan around so that she wouldn't be ambushed, before walking forwards towards the door to the entrance.

The Armor clad hunter shot a weak shot from her hand cannon which then disintegrated into nothingness. 'How peculiar...usually those door's just slide open when I hit them,' Samus thought as she walked into the base. What she discovered almost made her vomit inside her suit. The floors were littered with mutilated and disfigured corpses of chozo. However, she recognised a few of them as chozo's from her time on that planet.

'That's Golden Hawk and that's Silver Falcon,' Samus thought as she inspected some of the more recognisable dead. She stopped as she came across the one body she hoped never to see. In front of her sat Old Bird with a huge hole taken out of his abdomen. She fell to her knees before him, this time hugging him with all her might, "Grandpa…." she murmured as small tears began to trickle down her cheeks and onto her chin. "..I love you and…" Samus began before letting go and standing up, "...I will kill every one of those fucking space pirates!" she yelled, anger seething through her as she ran down into the rest of the base, seeing that it was swarming with pirates.

The hunter just growled lowly as she got all of their attention, "You're all going. To. Die."

* * *

She couldn't do anything...She couldn't do anything at all. Samus looked through the glass of the door as she saw Adam press down on the ejector button. Adam just turned to her, as the Metroid began to surround him, and smiled at her and mouthed, 'Goodbye Mistress..'

"No…" Samus mumbled out as sector zero detached and flew off a few kilometers from the ship before exploding. She fell down onto her knees, "Adam…" she muttered, before forcing back tears, "No, I still have a mission to do," she stated to herself, before standing up. She turned away and took one glance back, "I wish I told you how I felt…" she murmured before walking onwards.

* * *

.'My baby...' was all Samus could think when she saw that the now bipedal Mother Brain hadn't killed her. She saw her baby, the giant metroid that she had saved and had given to get raised, had saved her life. It distracted Mother Brain by smashing into it and even healed up Samus. The armor clad hybrid, could only smile as she saw her baby rescue her. She felt guilty though that she had abandoned the metroid to it's fate by giving it to the galactic federation.

She heard a scream. It wasn't a human scream or Mother Brain's scream. It was her baby's scream. She looked up as she saw the dead metroid fall down onto her, before changing into an energy force just before hitting Samus. She looked up at Mother Brain now, who was also focusing her one eye on Samus. "You killed my baby…" She muttered, as she felt an indescribable power surge through her body. "YOU KILLED MY BABY!" she yelled as she aimed and fired her newly given hyper beam at Mother Brain. She continued to fire and fire and fire even after the last remains of Mother Brain were gone.

However, her sense came back to her when she heard a base alarm ringing, indicating that it was going to blow up soon. Samus took one last look at where her baby would be, before running out of there as fast as she could.

* * *

"You really are a pure-bred bounty hunter aren't you?" the spy said as she removed her helmet. Her short hair and flawless skin were as white as marble and she looked up at the hunter in equal parts fear and determination. The spy unconsciously gripped the box at her side closer as she weighed her options.

"Look, I don't have that much on me, but what's in this box is worth a small fortune to the right buyer. If you just get me out of here I'll let you have a copy of the data." She was clearly trying her best not to be afraid, but something new was shining in her face. Hope.

The bounty hunter rose out of her seat, towering over the smaller woman, " Or I could just kill you and take the box from you. So, why should I get you out of here?" Samus replied, her voice remaining monotonous and robotic, so that no one would know the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy from the almost amazonian woman that she was. She knew full well that she wouldn't kill the spy. She had killed hundreds, if not thousands, of beings in her relatively short lifetime and this person in front of her wasn't going to be one of the many she would have to kill in the future. The spy swallowed.

"There's no call for that," she said as she held the box out. "Do what you want with it, and good luck with the code. If you don't get it right on the first try, it won't be worth anything to anyone and those nice men on the station won't be happy that you deleted their navigation charts."

She looked up at Samus with a look of defiance. A worried defiance, but defiance nonetheless.

Samus looked at her, a smile beginning to crown her face as she sat down. She then chuckled, the synthesizer transforming the chuckle into an almost evil one,"Impressive, very impressive." 'She stands in-front of the most famous bounty hunter and tries to be brave...' she thought, as her seat rotated so that she was facing the console, "Now, what is your destination?" the armor clad titan asked. 'Why not? It's not like I have any other missions.'

* * *

Samus looked at Crecy with a big blush, "Crecy. I have known you for only a few days but...I have developed strong feelings...for you.." the zero-suit wearing woman said as she put her hands on Crecy's shoulders, "And lifes too short to not just tell you out straight, that I want to be with you now...No matter what," Samus said as she leaned inwards. She puckered her lips slightly as she looked into Crecy's eyes.

However before her lips could meet Crecy's she felt a pair of long, thin fingers wrap themselves around her waist and forcefully pull her backwards. Samus turned to face her attacker and paled slightly as she saw the scarred face of Ridley. "Samus…" it spat out as it lifted her high above Crecy. Crecy herself seem to just disappear into the whiteness that surrounded the group, "Time to wake up," it growled, before the opening it's jaws and charging up it's fire-breath.

Samus just looked down towards where Crecy was, "I'm sorry Crecy.." she murmured, before allowing a few small tears to shed, "I'm so sorry…" Her moment ended abruptly when she felt Ridley finally let out the fire at her.

* * *

In the real world, Samus had been sleeping for two days straight and had fully recovered all her wounds. She had been placed into a medical bed beside Crecy, until she would awake.

Crecy's operation to clean out her brain from anything that virus might do to an organic computer-brain was relatively quick and painless, but she was still undergoing bed rest when Samus was brought out. It was a relief to see her back in one piece again, but as the doctors left them to their rest she mused that the hunter still had a lot of healing to fully recover.

Crecy then heard a very emotional whimper coming from from Samus, "I'm sorry Crecy..." She then saw a few beads of liquid fall down from Samus' eyes, all the way down to her chin, "I'm so sorry..."

Crecy was stunned. Even at her lowest point, she had never seen Samus cry. She always had a quiet air of invulnerability around her, and to see the front stripped away like this was just…

She slid out of bed and took a seat next to Samus's. She took her hand and just held it. The new skin from the healing tank was as soft and smooth as velvet.

The hunters eyes then shot open, before she bolted into a sitting position. She was breathing deeply as she felt everything begin to spin, "Where am I?" she asked as her world slowly came to stop. "Crecy?" she asked as she turned her head to face in the spy's direction.

"You took one hell of a beating. You okay now?" Crecy asked.

Samus then did something completely unexpected to Crecy. She embraced the spy in a big hug, tears falling from her eyes like rainfall. She remained silent as she finally allowed herself to weep for all the ghosts of her past: Her parents, Old bird, Baby, Adam...

"Never die Crecy!" the sobbing saviour yelled, her head entrenched in Crecy's shoulder. The stunned spy had no idea what to do, but settled for hugging the much stronger woman back.

"It's okay now," she crooned, trying to imitate Dr. Calloway at her most comforting, "I promise I won't die if you promise not to die either. Okay?"

Samus just nodded into Crecy's shoulder before pulling away and looking up at Crecy "I promise! I can't lose you too!" the hunter cried as she then let go of Crecy. She managed to slow turn her sob into a mere sniffle. "I've lived a nightmare Crecy...With only a few dreams."

"It's okay now. You're safe here." she crooned again, not entirely sure what to do. "You're awake now, the nightmare's over."

Samus lifted her hand up to gently cup Crecy's cheek, "Yeah...I suppose it is," she said giving a faint smile. Crecy blushed slightly at the close contact.

"So, uh, are you feeling any better? I was really worried about you."

"A little tired in the muscles, but it's probably normal after being in that tube for two days," The yawning hunter said, lying back, her hand still on the spy's cheek. "How about you? I remember seeing you when I came in."

"Oh, I was just given some anti-epileptic medicine and induced into REM sleep for a while. I didn't have to have my epidermal layer re-grown. I've actually just been confined to bed rest for the last day and a half or so."

"Why? What happened when I was...Down there?" Samus asked, her face filling with slight concern, as her hand slowly moved from the spy's cheek and down to her shoulder.. She knew full well that Crecy was fine, but she wanted to know what happened.

"Well, the bioroids are safe. They're waiting to go off world to one of the Federation colonies. Some funds have been quietly transferred to your account for your help too. Still no word from Raleigh though." Samus shook her head lightly, gently squeezing her shoulder.

"I meant, what happened to you? You didn't try and hack Raleigh's ship with your mind, did you?"

"No, no...but I did have to interface with your ship to get control of it after an attack virus got hold of it." Crecy said, looking away slightly. "That's what did me in."

Samus pulled Crecy into a comforting hug in silence. The hunter rested her head on the other's shoulder, slowly inhaling the sweet smell that radiated from Crecy's hair. After a few moments Crecy cleared her throat.

"Um, are you sure you're okay? You're being kinda...huggy."

The bounty hunter let out a small content sigh, before letting go of Crecy, a genuine and full smile on her lips. "Yes, I'm fine…" she said laying back before asking, "I don't suppose you discovered where Raleigh went, after I came back I mean?"

"Sorry, we still don't know where he is." Crecy shook her head. Samus was being unusually expressive and she wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. "The only lead we've got is a shipment to a weapon depot. We should check it out once you're back on your feet." it's a lead."


	11. Super Spies Extraordinaire

chapter 11: Samus and Crecy: Super Spies Extraordinaire

A/N: Sorry for such the long wait, I hope you's of all had a wonderful Christmas and a happy new year. By the way, we have changed chapter 10's ending as I was unhappy with it.

Previously: After being asked from NuPlan (a genetics company) and an Alice Unit (an android with near sentience) both Samus and Crecy went to save more Alice units and to capture Mr Raleigh (a slave trader). However, after they landed and Samus managed to get inside Mr Raleighs freighter thanks to Adam (Samus' ship AI) who, with Crecy, hacked into the freighter. However, the ship took off whenever Samus was being surrounded by guards, both because of Samus ordering Adam to leave her behind if she didn't come back in 20 minutes and a virus took that over the ship. After Crecy managed to get rid of the virus, the virus entered her, however she was saved by the NuPlan doctors. After a few hours Samus returned, severely burned and beaten, with the Alice units, before being put into a healing tube. After a few days of getting regenerated she and Crecy reunited, ready to go after Mr Raleigh again, thanks to a lead by one of the Alice units.

Security was heavy around the weapon's depot. Armed soldiers and automatic security systems of every description ensured that anyone hoping to sneak into the compound would be leaving in at least one small box. Power loaders carried crates of war materiel into massive warehouses to await for shipment, and one particular loader carried its cargo to the long term storage and had to wait until the pilot, machine, and cargo were thoroughly scanned. Having found nothing amiss, the great doors opened and the loader carefully placed the crate into its designated slot.

Some minutes later, after the loader returned to its duties and a rather bored security detail wandered past, a small door slid open and Crecy wormed her way out of the weapons crate.

"Okay, the room's clear. Come on out." Crecy whispered into her communicator.

A similarly suited person appeared from the shadows, "I'm here, Crecy," Samus whispered into their own communicator.

"Ah, there you are. Did you have any trouble getting in?" Crecy asked as she double-checked a blind corner to make certain that they were alone.

"A bit. This Armor is different to my original and it was a bit confusing at first," She stated as bounty hunter walked over to her, "Whenever, we get back, I have to finish fixing my suit,"

"Well first things first." Crecy reached into a pouch and tossed Samus a handheld scanner. "Scan everything and keep your eyes open for anything unusual. I'm going to keep watch so no-one takes us by surprise."

Samus nodded and began to scan the area, 'What kind of unusual?' she thought she scanned a nearby crate, "Crecy," She whispered into her reciever, "I've found something 'usual' in this crate." She then put the scanner down and tried to open the crate.

"Copy. Doesn't look like any patrols are heading this way yet." Crecy replied before sighing. "This would be so much simpler if we knew what we were looking for."

"I think I found it," Samus replied into her reciever as Crecy heard a slamming noise from the room that Hunter was in.

Crecy winced at the sound, but it didn't seem that anyone heard it. "Really, what did you find?"

"Bioroids." was all that Samus said as she inspected the humanoid robots. Her scans showed a mixture of synthetic and organic components, so she concluded that they must be bioroids.

"Why are they storing bioroids in a weapon depot?" Crecy asked, mostly to herself. "See if there's any more, and scan them for the manufacturer's tag. It should be embedded under the skin of the left wrist."

"Copy that, Crecy," she replied before her com went mute. After a few minutes of scanning the bioroids, she discovered that the manufactures were Pan-Life Industries and that there was something odd about them. There was an odd device built into each of the wrists and back to her elbow. it seemed, cylindrical in structure. "Crecy, there's something odd about these bioroids…"

"What do you mean?" Crecy doubled back to look over her partner's shoulder to see what she was talking about.

"Look at this scan of her arm," Samus said as she pointed out the cylindrical device, "Either this is a new model or these bioroids have been refitted with 'that'...Do you know what that thing is?"

Crecy took a look, but this wasn't her area of expertise.

"I don't know. A gun maybe? It'd be a pretty sneaky trick to turn these things into assassins. We should get a tally of these things and-" she stopped suddenly as she heard the warehouse doors start to grind open. "Quick! Hide!" she said as she activated her stealth field and started to blur out of view.

Samus looked around before quickly ducking into the crate and lifted the crate door to hide her, forgetting that her borrowed suit had the same stealth technology as Crecy's. It was cramped but she had enough room to crouch.

A massive power loader tramped into the room with a veritable platoon of armed guards as escort. The loader was carefully carrying a large metal container plastered with biohazard warnings directly towards the back of the warehouse where Samus was hiding. One of the members of the escort approached the rear wall and opened a small secret door and entered a code onto a number pad.

The entire rear wall flickered and vanished as the holographic cover dissipated, revealing a massive set of doors that started to slowly open to an equally massive freight elevator.

"That looks pretty suspicious." Samus heard Crecy say. "Let's follow them. If we keep on their heels we should be able to get past any security. Don't forget to use your stealth field."

Samus pressed a button under her neck and felt the faintest of tingles across her skin as the stealth field wrapped itself wrap itself around her, bending light around her until only the sharpest eye could detect her presence. She watched through the crack of the crate's door until the guards waiting for the elevator weren't looking in her direction before sliding the door open and stepping out. After closing the crate she almost immediately blundered into an invisible Crecy who gave a small yelp in surprise and grabbed at Samus to avoid falling over.

One of the guards looked over in their direction at the sound and the two held their breath. His eyes narrowed as he seemed to notice something and took a few steps in their direction.

The elevator finally arrived and one of the guards companions tapped him on the shoulder, indicating that it was time to go. The two women sighed in relief as the loader and its guards started filing into the elevator.

The legendary bounty hunter remained holding onto Crecy, waiting for a few more minutes until everyone was out of the elevator before saying, "That was a close one. We should hold hand so we don't walk into each other again," She said, finally letting go of her impromptu embrace of Crecy.

Samus put her arm on where she guessed Crecy's shoulders where and then dragged the hand down her arm, before reaching her hand. She then gently grabbed her hand. 'I could get used to using this suit if it means I get to keep holding her hand,' Samus thought as she forced her eyes to see the almost invisible Crecy. Her invisible companion led her by the hand to the keypad where entered the same code she saw the spied earlier.

Before too long the doors of the massive freight elevator opened up and the two filed in. The elevator only had one stop and immediately began its descent as the doors closed. With only the whirring of gears to accompany them they travelled not only down, but an an angle as well, deep into the bowels of the planet.

"What do you suppose is down here?" Crecy asked.

"Considering the amount of security to get to this point and with my luck, it's probably some type of world destroying weapon," Samus replied, a little chuckle escaping as she finished her sentence.

The elevator stopped and the double doors slid back. Crecy gasped at the sight, a massive cavern so large that they couldn't see the top, stuffed full of gantries, crates, technological equipment, and anyone's guess what all else.

A pair of security robots walked past on patrol, but their sensors didn't seem to detect the invisible duo.

"Holy hell." Crecy whispered. "We didn't go that far down did we? There's an entire base down here!"

Samus shrugged, forgetting momentarily that Crecy would be unable to see the shoulder movement, "I know, but what is it housing?" she whispered to her, "A pair of advanced cybernetics just walked past and they would cost me my arm and half my leg."

"Only one way to find out. Stay close now."

Crecy started leading the way into the cavern, stopping here or dashing there to avoid patrols of robots and humans alike. As they proceeded deeper into the base they started finding signs of old wiring and sweeping architecture that only one race with a penchant for underground labyrinths developed.

"I know this wiring, I've seen it a thousand times on…" she began before stopping letting out a small shocked gasp. She quickened her pace, now forcefully dragging Crecy forward, in order to see if she was right about this being chozo tech.

"I heard that there used to be a pirate base on this planet," Crecy said as they hurried past a rack of anti-air missiles, "but I thought it was bombed to ash before the first settler even set foot on this planet."

They didn't have to go far to determine the truth of the matter. Carved into the far wall was a mural half-covered by a currently inactive broadcast screen.

"Oh...Crap," Was all Samus could mutter out as she looked at the screens, "This is a Chozo research facility," she said turning her head to look at where she assumed Crecy was.

"How can you tell?" Crecy asked. "Can you read those carvings?"

"Yes, I can," She said simply still looking at Crecy, "And this is a weapons. research. lab." she said, making sure to put emphasis on each word.

"Well, if you say so-" the broadcast screen suddenly came to life and the giant face of an older woman with half her face replaced with cybernetics loomed over them.

"Attention all hands" her voice boomed over the loudspeakers, "A special guest will be joining us within the hour. All hands without exception are to report to their stations until further notice."

The screen winked off just as suddenly and the air was filled with a sounds of frantic activity.

"Samus, that was Mrs. Calliope, one of the people we're supposed to be hunting! I recognize her from the dossier." Crecy said urgently.

"So we can get rid of two with one journey, great," Samus said flatly as she looked at Crecy, "How are we going to fight them though?"

"You said it yourself, we're in a weapons research lab. Shouldn't be that hard to get our hands on something we can use. The hard part is escaping after we've opened fire."

A team of five technicians or so bolted past them, each hurriedly pulling uniforms on as they ran.

Samus got an idea and quickly pulled on the last two technicians and hurriedly bashed their heads together, "I got a plan," she whispered to Crecy as she looked around.

"I think I see where your plan is going." her partner replied as she grabbed one of the unconscious technicians and started dragging towards a secluded corner.

Samus did the same with the other technician before turning off the stealth on her suit, "Crecy, do you want to change first?" she asked, already turning around so that Crecy could put on the technicians jumpsuit.

"Hey, we're both professionals here." Crecy said, already halfway through stripping down to her black and white zero-suit. "Don't know what we're going to do with the stealth suits though. I don't like the idea of these guys getting a hold of their technology."

"Me either, especially being able to turn invisible," Samus responded, forcing herself not to turn her head to look over at Crecy. "Should we destroy them?"

"It's a shame, but they can always be replaced." Crecy said as she zipped up the jumpsuit. It was a size or two too large, and baggy enough that her hidden sidearm wasn't obvious. She paused long enough to slip on the earpiece from her helmet. "Okay, you can turn around now."

Samus turned around and smiled beneath her helmet, "Lets just say, you're not going to win any fashion show with that on," she said with a small chuckle.

"Hey, if this ruse gets us out of here alive I'll chalk it up as a win anyway." she replied as she set about tying up and gagging their unwitting donors.

Samus just smiled and nodded, "A win, and after we take those two out, we can get enough credits to buy you a good dress," the bounty hunter said taking off her helmet, waiting for her companion to turn around. She eventually took the hint and dutifully turned around.

"Are you implying my other dresses aren't nice?" she asked jokingly.

"I'm implying, that I didn't even know you had dresses," Samus responded while taking off the armored shell, "You're always wearing your stealth suit or jeans and a t-shirt."

"Sometimes a jacket too." Crecy corrected her, before suddenly going silent as another group of people hurried past.

Samus quickly put zipped up the jumpsuit that she had just momentarily before stripped from the engineer, "Okay, sometimes a jacket," She whispered. The Jumpsuit fitted her perfectly, which had the effect of making her sidearm stick out like a sore thumb.

"I suggest we split up now." Crecy said. "I'll look for a computer terminal to disarm the security while you find a weapon and see if you can't get a drop on our 'host'."

"Okay," The bounty hunter responded as she took the communicator out of her helmet, before smiling at Crecy with a warm grin,"And we'll be done by dinner."

Crecy smiled back and tapped her ear where her earpiece was hidden "Keep in contact miss…" she looked down at the nametag stitched to her partner's jumpsuit. "Roberts."

"You too, Miss…" Samus began before raising an eyebrow, "Aran...huh, what a coincidence," was all Samus could say.

Crecy looked down at the unconscious Mr. Aran. "Any relation?"

"Not that I'm aware of," Mrs Aran said looking at him, "and to be honest, if he's working for a slave trader, he might as well some random person for all I care," the bounty hunter explained simply before getting rid of her sidearm, "Lets go then, no time like the present,"

She nodded and the two stepped out of their secluded corner. Crecy gave Samus a brief thumbs up before jogging off in a random direction in an effort to look busy while she searched for a terminal or mainframe.

Samus gave a small wave before walking in the other opposite direction, reading all the small parts of Chozo she could understand, hoping that it would lead her to some sort of weapon. Someone tapped her on the shoulder.

"Hey, you're one of the new techs right?" someone said behind her.

The galaxy renowned bounty hunter stopped in her tracks. "Uh, yeah…" She said, not yet turning to face whoever was behind her.

"Are you in the weapons division? We've need one of these security bots fixed before the VIP arrives."

"...Okay, lead me to patient then," Samus said turning to face the person with a small, nervous chuckle. She hoped that it the robot came with instructions. The youngish security guard lead her to through the hallways of crates and into the complex proper where a pair of his squadmates loitered next to a deactivated combat droid still in its charging station. It was quite a large model and in had two cannons where its arms should be.

"We think its a problem with its battery." her guide explained. "It won't turn on whatever we do."

The bounty hunter gave the robot an inquisitive look before asking the guide for tools. 'Hopefully, I can stall for time..'

"Tools? Um...if you haven't been assigned your own toolbox yet I guess you could check at the service depot…" the guard ventured. "You know where that is?"

'Shit' was al Samus could think right now, 'why couldn't she just have been able to walk away,' "Um, yeah, it's over there, right?" She asked, pointing to the right in a vague angle.

"There's a closer one. I'll show you." her guide volunteered.

"And hurry up with it." one of his companions said. "We're supposed to be guarding the Bio wing by now."

Needing no further encouragement her guide started leading her deeper into the base at a brisk pace.

Samus scanned everything that she could as she followed her guide, knowing that it would probably help later. Before too long they arrived at the depot, where a small handful of techs and mechanics were gathering up their toolbelts and toolboxes before pushing past the two in a rush to get to their posts.

"So uh, how long have you been assigned to this base?" her guide asked now that they were alone.

"To tell you the truth, this is my first day," Samus said, hoping that acting bashfully and looking down would aid her rouse.

"Ah, that explains a few things. Who do you report to, by the way?" he asked casually as he shifted his grip on his rifle.

Samus looked at the rifle and said, "Mrs Calliope," she said, hoping that it sounded plausible.

"Really? A new recruit like you reports to the base commander herself?" he said suspiciously. He brought his weapon up so it could easily be brought to bear.

Samus just looked at the rifle in his hands. If he wanted to he could easily kill her. "Yeah, she bought off the slave market," the bounty hunter replied quickly, guessing that some slaves would have some knowledge of engineering.

"Uh huh." he said as he keyed his radio. "Command, I thi-" was the last thing her guide could say before the bounty hunter aimed a kick at his face. The kick was like a bullet, it utterly destroyed the radio he was carrying and even forced chunks of it into the mans head. He went over like a sack of cement and ceased moving as soon as he hit the ground. Even without her power armor she still had a monstrous kick.

Samus sighed as she kneeled down, "Sorry, I wish things could have been better," she responded as she stripped him of his clothes. After quickly redressing in the guides clothes and taking his rifle. No sooner had she made the switch when her earpiece started to buzz.

"Technician Aran here. Good news, got control of the elevator in the event of a lockdown. Bad news, I'm being herded towards a general inspection. How are things on your end?"

"Security Guard...Lyons here, had a change of uniform and gained a rifle, over all situation is neutral," She said whispered back, as she dragged her guide into the nearest closet.

"Roger that. The VIP should be any moment, so if you have any other preparations left to do you'd better…" she stopped and a moment later started again in an exasperated tone, "Your doctor friend from that pirate ship is back."

"Technician Aran, what sector of the base are you in? I will come and get you," Samus replied, feeling anxious over a general inspection that involved that Sadist.

"Um. I'm in some sort of parade ground with a couple dozen other personnel. There's also a kind of bird-like statue with loudspeakers and wires and stuff hanging from it off to my right. Does that help?" she asked.

"You're in the main chamber, where the experiments take…" Samus began as her eyes widened, "Crecy, you've got to get out of there," The bounty hunter hissed as she ran down the corridors looking at any and all things so that she could find the main chamber.

"Don't forget the mission." she whispered back before she stopped transmitting.

The hallways were empty before her. It seemed that since everyone was at their posts there was no-one left to guard this part of the base from intruders.

Mrs. Calliope's voice boomed over the loudspeakers, "Everyone stand at attention for our research expert, the esteemed Dr. Galway!"

The slam of dozens of heels striking the ground in unison off to her right brought Samus to a window overlooking the scene. In the main chamber below the base's guards, mechanics, combat robots, and so forth were arranged in military blocs, forming an avenue for the unpleasantly familiar doctor flanked by two gemini beasts to parade down. Looking almost straight down she caught a sight of Crecy standing at attention in the middle of a regiment of technicians, but no sign of where Calliope was directing the ceremony from.

The bounty hunter let out a small breath she didn't know she was holding, "Crecy's okay…" she muttered to herself as she then quickly strode down the hall and down the stair to find a way into the main chamber. She eventually found one but it was guarded by a pair of combat robots, the same models as the kind she was asked to fix less than an hour ago.

Samus looked at them, then took a deep breath, 'this should work,' she thought as she walked up to them, "Let me through," she ordered, holding the rifle in attention. Her bluff seemed to work. The door swung open and the guards made no effort to stop her, though their eyes tracked her every step of the way. The bounty hunter entered and quickly scanned the room with her eyes. How she felt naked without her armor without all the many visions that she had installed over the years to help her see everything with vivid clarity, now she had to rely on her own instincts and vision.

What she didn't need any special visors to see was that she was outnumbered and outgunned. Perhaps the only advantage she had was the element of surprise since no-one yet suspected that the base had been infiltrated. Samus marched around the group of engineers and Crecy, wanting to get the dimensions of the room and all exits if she needed to run fast. Due to her wearing the outfit of a security guard, everyone assumed she was just on patrol. Aside from the side entrance she just came from, there were two large entrances on opposing sides of the main chamber, and above the nearer was another observation window where Calliope watched over the proceedings below. The large door below opened for the sadistic doctor and his two abomination bodyguards before sealing behind them. After a few moments the assembled personnel started to mill around before finally breaking off to return to their normal duties.

Crecy walked up to Samus and whispered, "So what now?"

Samus looked at her, not knowing how to answer. For once she didn't have an immediate plan of action, "Crecy...I don't know…" she whispered back, "Have you discovered anything?"

"Well, I found an auxiliary control station, but it doesn't control anything like the alarm systems or the security 'bot routines. Got a map of the complex though, for what it's worth." she handed over a folded sheet of paper with the floorplan of the entire base printed on it.

Samus quickly skimmed over the map, "Wait...There, there's the main power source," the half-breed said as she pointed at a room that appeared to be at random. Crecy looked down at the indicated room.

"Okay...so we can take out the main power source. Then what?"

"While everyone is confused, we go to the Chozo statue." The famed hunter replied, looking around discreetly for anyone who could have heard them.

"What's so special about the statue?" Crecy asked in a quieter voice.

"It's a chozo data transfer terminal," Samus whispered back, "It could transport data caches from one space constellation to the other without the need of mass, however, it only works with Chozo's" she explained very basically, not wanting to tell her what would happen if a non-chozo (or at least someone who didn't have chozo armour on) tried to activate the statue..

Her partner scratched behind her head. "Useful, but how does that help us with the mission?"

Samus looked at her, "Well, all we need to do is find a basic Chozo armor, then we upgrade it using the statue, then we will have them outgunned in every respect," she muttered with a small smile.

"Ah! And they'll never know what hit them!" Crecy smiled back. "First thing's first though, we need to find some of that armor."

"Correct," Samus said slyly, "There should be some in the general area," She said, drawing an imaginary circle around the north-west most area of the map. The power grid was in the east while they're current location was just south of the middle.

"Looks like we'll have to split up again to synchronize this. I'll wait for your signal before I sabotage the mainframe." Crecy said as she stepped back.

"Okay. Good Luck," Samus concluded as she walked away from the jumpsuited spy. She hurried along the corridors as quickly as she could without looking too suspicious. Eventually she found it. The armory.

However, a pair of hardened-looking security guards were standing outside a heavy blast door. They were already watching her suspiciously.

"Technician Aran here, I'm in position. Just give the word and I'll have the power down in one minute or so."

Samus just walked over to them, "Open the door," She commanded, hoping that this would work, "Commander Calliope wants me to make sure that everything is accounted for in there," she stated, pointing at the room for which they were guarding.

The two guards looked at each other, then back to her. "We weren't notified of any inspection." one said.

"She wanted to make sure that everything was running smoothly, without her needing to warn you," Samus replied giving the soldiers a look. The senior of the two guards rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"All right, just hurry it up in there." he said as he unlocked the door.

Samus entered, neary a smile on her face. "Thank you," she said simply, before pressing a button that closed the armory door. Fortunately for her, there remained a few chozo suits still in their rightful places: In azure-glass closets. Unfortunately, there was quite a lot of security patrolling the armory. "Technician Aran?" She whispered as she walked in a patrol like manner towards the encased Chozo Armor. "It's time.."

There was no response.

She tried again. "Aran? Are you there?" a chill ran down her spine as silence responded. "Crecy?"

The room was plunged into darkness. After a moment low red emergency lights lit up and a deep klaxon, more felt with the teeth than heard with the ears, started resounding throughout the base.

Within the limited time scale that Samus had, she managed to force one of the glass closets open. Through the dim lights she found the button on the back of the neck that transformed the armor into a glowing ball of light.

It blinded the guards, as they had only about adjusted to the emergency light. Whenever they blinked the brightness from their eyes they managed to see the grey, armored bounty hunter to whom they all had heard of: Samus Aran.

The guards shouted and started shooting. Most of the shots went wide, the flashes of laser fire only serving to briefly illuminate their impending doom.

Samus smiled softly behind her helmet, for she had finally got her suit back. She walked forward and, using her reaquainted hand cannon, fired a quick plasma blast at each of the surrounding guards, vaporizing them on impact.

"I have the suit, come to the armory now," Samus said as she exited said room.

She still got no response from her partner but the base was on full alert now. Hopefully she would be able to keep out of trouble during the confusion while Samus did what she did best.

The main room was filled with Plasma shots, some from Samus and a lot from the opposition. Due to the room only being semi-lit, Samus had the advantage of not worrying about who she shot as all of them were the enemy. It started feeling like old times again as she killed the last guard in the main room, "Much better," she sighed as she walked over to the chozo statue.

She placed her hand on the flat palms of the statue, it's eyes beginning to glow a warm scarlet colour. The statue let out an audible hum as it transferred the data into her suit, replenishing her with all her suits original weapons.

"You sure know how to make an entrance."

Samus whirled around to see Crecy, back in her stealth suit with the other one slung over her shoulder. "Sorry for losing contact but I got into a bit of a scuffle and my communicator broke." she stepped over a pile of scrap that was a security robot. "Essential personnel are locked down in the center of the base, and I'll bet they're trashing sensitive data as we speak."

"I don't care about that, we need to get Calliope and Raleigh," Samus stated as she looked around to make sure that the robots/guards were in-fact dead. "Let me guess, Nuplan would like that data?"

She shrugged. "If we can, but it's not a priority. Our main concern should be finishing off the two targets we've got cornered."

The large door opened and two hulking gemini beasts stomped towards them.

"I think we got bigger concerns than that.."


	12. One down

Chapter 12: One down

Previously:...Samus and Crecy both died, after saving the universe from an army of Ridley Clones. After that, a new hero was formed, Ulter-overlord-queen Etna, who then rid the entire universe of pirates and GF then announced her as leader-Ultra-Overlord-Most beautiful-invincible-Queen Etna of the entire then went to heaven, defeating the great Sepheraph: Austin Powers. However, he managed to use his shag-aliscious powers to turn her good, only after his death. Having then been declared owner of both Celestia, the galaxy she turned her head to the Netherworld. There she met the most evil person ever to be: Stephenie Meyer. (No, that didn't actually happen, I'm just sick of having to write 'previously's. If you really want to know what happened, re-read it.)

The ground shook as two hulking gemini beasts stomped towards them. Crecy swallowed. Last time those abominations made an appearance Samus had a hard enough time fighting just one of them.

"Got any new tricks up your arm cannon?" she asked as she instinctively prepared to run.

Samus grinned beneath her helmet as she pointed her hand cannon at one of the Gemini-beasts, "In a matter of speaking." She fired a dark red beam at the beast, it going straight through it as if the Gemini had been made of paper. The first one collapsed and shook the ground like a ton of bricks, while the second one roared in rage and charged. The second blast vaporized its head and sent it to the ground with equal ease.

"Holy hell!" Crecy said, "What was that?"

"That was the Proton beam," Samus replied, putting her hand cannon down as she faced towards Crecy, "What do you think of it?"

"Certainly gets the job done." Crecy said, sincerely hoping that she wouldn't ever be on the wrong end of that thing.

"Too bad that it takes 20 minutes to cool down after that little run-in," Samus replied, her voice with a fine line of annoyance. Her cannon began to reconfigure into the more circular, Plasma cannon.

"Hopefully that was the worst that they could throw at us." Crecy said as she looked down at the fallen gemini then back to her partner. "Let's finish this."

"Yes, lets," Samus said as she marched past the two dead abominations. She lead the way down into the heart of the facility, and it seemed that whatever security remained decided that that throwing themselves at them was tantamount to suicide because not a single guard tried to stop them.

They eventually came up to a massive set of blast doors and Crecy looked down to consult their map.

"This room doesn't even exist on this map, but it doesn't look like there's any other place they could have escaped to. Give me a second and I'll get this open."

With a hiss of pneumatic servos the heavy doors started to grind open, and a Calliope's booming voice greeted them.

"Samus Aran. I knew a hunter like you would be coming after me one day, so I was ready."

The doors finally slammed open, revealing a massive war mech, 20 feet tall, covered in advanced armor, and bristling with machine guns and missile launchers. Samus's sharp eyes could just make out Calliope's smug, half metal smirk through a half-foot of armor glass.

"Gorgeous isn't it?" their cybernetic quarry smirked.

"Crecy, I don't suppose you've got a way to control that do you?" Samus asked as she aimed her cannon at the Mech's legs. The cannon reconfigured into it's missile firing mode, "Because if not, you should probably run,"

Crecy took half a step back. "Uh, right. I'll leave this to you then. Good luck?"

The massive mech leveled a twin-minigun at them and spooled up as Crecy activated her stealth field and ran.

Samus side-strafed to the left, firing missile after missile into the 'ankle' of Calliope's mech, doing her best to break the bonds so that the mech would collapse. The missiles bounced off its laminate armor, and Calliope laugh boomed through the hanger.

"You'll have to do better than that!" she responded with a salvo of her own.

"Oh Crap," she muttered as jumped backwards, firing a missile at one of the missile launchers. She had aimed for the missile to enter the chamber, hitting the rockets inside the mech and causing them to explode. An entire cassette of missiles detonated, blowing open a hole in its armor.

"Agh! Damn it!" a few armor panels slid back revealing new sets of missiles which wasted no time emptying their payloads at the devious hunter.

Like a machine, that many people thought the she was, fired precise plasma shots at the missiles. As good as she was though, a few of the missiles got through and splintered her left armored leg.

"Fuck!" Samus yelled as she fell on one knee, her other leg dripping red with blood.

The giant mech leveled its twin miniguns at the hunter. "Not as invincible as they say are you?" Calliope gloated.

Samus looked up at her, then chuckled, "I don't need to be," she said now downright laughing as she rose to her feet. A small cylinder rolled between Samus's feet from behind, and she was suddenly enveloped in a thick cloud of smoke. The giant mech fired a flurry of armor-piercing rounds blindly into the cloud.

"Good Job Crecy," Samus congratulated as the two of them arrived at the back of the mech, "So, how do you feel about climbing?" the bounty hunter queried before jumping and grabbing onto part of the 'back knee' of the machine.

"No problem." Crecy immediately started clambering up the other leg while the giant mech swung left and right, looking for its vanished quarry. She hung from the machine's shoulder, both her hands wrapped around a spent missile tube.

"What now?" she shouted over the stomping as Calliope started trying to shake them off.

"We do what I do best," Samus stated as she pulled her arm back, closed her eyes and forced her hand into 'spine' of the mech. "Ow…" she muttered monotonely as she then ripped out wires that were inside. Crecy started following their lead, jamming her handful of breaching charges into the joints closest to her.

The mech started to shudder and falter as part of its internal systems were ripped out of it. It started to tilt as connection to its internal stabilizer was lost. "And, boom," Samus said as she pushed her hand cannon into the 'spine' hole, rearranged it to the Proton beam and fired straight down, through every connecting wire.

The mech started to fall forward as Crecy leapt clear. It tried to catch itself, but the charges in its left arm detonated and seized in place, and the war machine planted on its cockpit with a deafening crash.

Samus remained in place on the mech her cannon still deep in it's spinal cord. She ripped it out from the now defunct machine and stood atop the mech. like a knight over a slayed dragon. She then followed Crecy's example and jumped off the machine, just in time to see something moving in the shattered glass by the area that used to be the cockpit. Calliope scrambled from the wreckage, more shaken than injured. Samus walked over, standing right in front of her, "And that Calliope," she began as she put her hand down to grab the bounty by the neck, "Is why I don't need to be invincible,"

She squirmed in the hunter's iron grip while Crecy looked smugly on. "Not bad for a day's work." "Well Crecy, we've got one of your bounty's," Samus stated her fingers tightening around the doctors throat like a vice.

They heard a chuckle from above, and the two looked up to see their other quarry, Dr. Galway, wave at them from an observation room while an alarm intoned, "Reactor overload in five minutes. All hands abandon the facility. Reactor overload in five minutes."

Armored shutters fell into place, cutting Galway off from view. Crecy looked over at her companion. "That doesn't sound good."

"Crecy, you're going to have to get him," Samus stated, looking down at her leg after having finally choked Calliope into unconsciousness.

Crecy shot her a look of disbelief. "In five minutes? We need to get out of here! We can catch that doctor again later."

Samus looked at her then at Calliope before ending her gaze at the still running man. "Damn!" She let out, her exasperation having met its peak.

The now wounded hunterk then began to hobble away and towards the exit, the wound in her leg making her wince every time she put both her and Calliope's weight on it. Crecy lent her support, taking a shoulder to take the strain off her partner's injured leg. Together the two hobbled towards the elevator they entered from as alarms and klaxons flashed and blared all around them.

As the elevator ascended upwards, a loud voice stated, "30 seconds until self destruction." Samus let out a sigh as she pushed the still comatose Calliope off of her, before sitting down, knowing that the elevator would be up at the surface before the 'basement' would self-destruct.

"Sneaking back out of the compound is going to be a trick." Crecy said as she kneeled down opposite and fished a first aid kit out of one of her suit's pockets. "Let me take a look at that leg."

"It's fine...Nothing a little R&amp;R can't solve," Samus lied as she moved her foot so Crecy could get a better look at the wound. It looked bad, a mess of blood, shredded flesh, and shrapnel. Crecy took a medical spray and applied it to the wound. It was mostly a disinfectant, numbing and coagulating agent, enough so she could walk straight until she could get proper care. A low rumbling could be felt below them as the base reactor started to overload. Crecy put the kit away and stood up as the elevator reached the top.

"Well, now we just have to turn this bounty in." Crecy said as she nudged their unconscious quarry. "I don't suppose your bounty hunter licence has anything in it about being on secure property in pursuit of a target?"

Samus let out a small chuckle as she forced herself to her legs, "Yes, only do it for quadruple digits." The famed bounty hunter gripped the back of Calliope's collar and began to stumble onwards, "But for you I'll do it for triple digits."

High in the silver spire Mr. Zenta turned to watch the latest news broadcast. Grainy security footage showed Samus in her distinctive armor haul the unconscious criminal across the weapons depot while a friendly female voice read out the news.

"More on the surprise quake earlier today, It seems that the source was the top-listed bounty hunter Samus Aran destroying an underground weapons cache during her capture of the feared Abigail Calliope. Calliope was listed at #78 of the Federation's 100 most wanted and is awaiting transportation off world at Red Mountain's maximum security detainment facility. Heavy Armor Security, the firm that runs the depot where she was captured reportedly has no idea how she established a base on their premises but has agreed to assist the investigation."

Zenta swiveled in his chair to face Samus.

"It seems your reputation is well deserved. I'll have the payment for her capture forwarded to your account directly."

Said bounty hunter nodded, "Good, however due to a mistake made by me, I will be taken a short break. After that, I will return to the task and capture the rest." The hybrid then turned and left, limping slightly as she did.

She walked to the elevator, were her partner was leaning patiently against the far wall and nodded, "Crecy, thanks for fixing my leg up. I'll have to take it easy for the next week or two, so you can leave if you want."

Crecy chuckled. "Hey, my orders were pretty clear. As long as you're on the colony, I'm supposed to stick to you like glue. I doubt you'll be out of commission for a full week anyway, you've seen how good our medical techs are." for emphasis she gently pinched some skin on Samus's arm. Skin that was grown only a few days ago.

Samus let out a small chuckle and a little blush at the comment and the contact. "Crecy, as hard as this may sound, even universe renowned bounty hunters like to have a break and wounds are one of the few exceptions that all me to get said break, so just let me have this will you?" she asked with a small wink as she pressed the button for the elevator to come, "and if you need to stick by me, how about we have a 'girls day out'?"

"Oh, well if you put it that way…" The elevator arrived and the two stepped in. "I wouldn't mind a day off, but if you need a day to yourself I'm sure we can arrange something."

The bounty hunter looked disappointed by the others words. She had only offered her the week to herself in-case she had someone to spend it with, Samus didn't want to have a week alone, at least not anymore. "No...To tell you the truth, I've never have a 'girls day out', hell, I haven't even had a friend to have a 'girls day out' with."

Crecy looked incredulous. "Really? A nice girl like you?"

"You must remember, I've been in that suit most of my life and I lived with giant birds since I was 6," Samus began letting out a small sigh, "After that, it's mostly been work due to that stupid Chozo prophecy," she whispered out, even now fearing that Old-bird might hear her. "So, no, I haven't been able to have friends...Well, besides Adam."

"Oh, yeah I guess that wouldn't leave a lot of time for yourself." then she brightened. "In that case, this should be an education for you. And maybe while we're out and about you can tell me more about this prophecy."

"Good...I'd like that," Samus said as she did something that may seem normal to other but not to her: She hugged Crecy, "Crecy, where do we go to have girls day out?" she asked, her arms wrapped gently around the spy's back.

"Uh, I guess that depends on what you want to do." Crecy said, somewhat taken aback by the gesture. "I know some good stores and restaurants if that's your thing, there's also some clubs downtown if you prefer."

"Hmm.." Samus pondered the suggestions. This would be her first off week in over a decade, so she'd be using it to her fullest. Well, as full as you could with a shot leg. "How about the shops and restaurants, paid for by Miss Calliope," she said with a smile as she pulled away from Crecy, her arms still gently wrapped around her, but now she could see Crecy's facial reactions.

"It's a date then." Crecy said with a small smile.


	13. A girls night out with Samus and Crecy

Chapter 13: A girls night out with Samus and Crecy

Previously: Instead of a previously, I will give you one of my favourite movie quotes: "I have existed from the morning of the world and I shall exist until the last star falls from the night. Although I have taken the form of Gaius Caligula, I am all men as I am no man and therefore I am a God." And my good friend, and co-writer, Fractured Sanity's favourite movie quote: "Your Grace, Napoleon has ridden within range. May I have your permission to try a shot?" "Certainly not! Commanders of armies have something better to do than fire at each other."

Crecy could hardly remember the last time she'd had a girl's night out. Nonetheless it would give her a chance to find out some more about her mysterious partner. She'd been very good at covering her tracks as she drifted from bounty to bounty and as consequence the things they knew about her with certainty made for a very thin file.

Said partner had insisted that the two go dress shopping, as it was one of the only things that she knew girls to do on such days. At the moment she was in the changing room trying on a dress. However the thing that was on her mind was, 'How can this dress cost 230 credits?'

"Found something you like?" Crecy asked from the adjacent stall. Looking in the mirror she decided that an empire-waist did not flatter her figure at all.

"I think so, will you take a look?" Samus inquired, thinking that if Crecy liked it, it'd be worth it to buy it. She stepped out of the changing room to show the spy.

She was wearing a black dress that went all the way down to her knees. It had a small V-neck, so it showed a bit of cleavage but not enough that it would appear 'slutty'. Around her waist, she had a golden coloured belt that tightened the dress to her form.

"Sure." Crecy emerged wearing a simple, dark green dress with a wide ribbon of the same material wrapped just below her chest. "Ah, I see you went with the synth-silk version. Very nice."

The bounty hunter merely blinked as she looked at her compadre. "You...You look beautiful," she said, smiling at her. She then cleared her throat, "I mean, that dress looks beautiful on you..."

Crecy chuckled. "Careful now, you almost slipped up there. I'm not so taken with it, but I'm glad you like it. I think the one you picked out suits you a lot better."

"Well, thank you," Samus responded forcing her smile back to a more reserved smirk. "And, since this is my first real off-day, I'm paying."

"If I can ask something," Crecy started as she got changed back into her day clothes, "if this is your first day-off how do you generally spend your money? All those bounties can't go just to meals and ship maintenance can it?"

"Half of the bounty I save, in-case of emergencies, and after food and repairs the rest go to the Galactic Federation Childrens foundation," Samus stated nonchalantly as she looked at herself in the mirror.

"Huh. I guess I never took you for a philanthropist. Anonymous donations I presume?"

Samus straightened the dress out, "Yes, I'm not about to allow another child to have to go what I gone through..." she muttered, before turning to Crecy. "Lets go pay for th someplace you want to go," she said, getting away from that topic. She paid at the register and the two stepped out into the cool morning air.

"Okay, since you answered my question it's only fair if I answer one of yours." Crecy said as she adjusted her jacket, "Anything you want to know?"

"Okay, what do you like to do in your free time?" Samus asked. She was honestly curious as to what the spy would do for fun.

"A lot of reading, I guess. Nothing really interesting I'm afraid, I get enough excitement in my day job."

Samus let out a small sigh. She didn't expect that much from the spy, but she had wanted something that she and Crecy could do together. "Okay," She replied simply. After clothes shopping, the famed bounty hunter, the tactician that had defeated being much more powerful than herself: Was out of Ideas for things to do.

Crecy looked down at their shopping. One dress apiece. "Well, how would you like a new pair of shoes?"

Samus looked down at her shoes. In comparison to the dress she was wearing, they were army boots. "I could use a nice pair of shoes, do you know a good place for them?" she asked, giving her a partner a knowing smirk.

"I may know a place or two. Come on." she grabbed Samus's hand and started leading her down the neon streets toward the city center. "My turn again. What's your role in that prophecy you mentioned earlier?"

Samus let Crecy lead her around as if she were a lost sheep, but her eyes had slitted slightly at the question, "I'd rather not discuss that, if you wouldn't mind," she all but whispered.

"Oh, sorry." Crecy stopped as much to let some cross traffic pass as to shoot her partner an apologetic look. "Would you be more comfortable talking a little about what it was like growing up with the Chozo maybe?"

The hunter's face lightened at that question, a glaze of times gone by covering her eyes. "Well, where to begin? Almost as soon as I got there I was living in that suit," she began, remembering how long it took her to get used to sleeping in it. "They were very strict, so if I said anything rude or did something bad, I would be spanked by Old Bird...He never really did that hard, the old coot.." she said, letting the world slip away for a moment as she giggled freely, "One time I asked him, why he looked so bad in the morning, and I swear he was laughing just as much as I was as he bent me over his knee.."

"They'd spank a girl in an armored suit?" Crecy asked, holding back some laughter at the mental image.

"Yep, they may not look it but they could probably break the suit in half if they wanted," Samus replied still giggling, loving the moment of pure nostalgia, "Oh, Old Bird.." it was at this point that she stopped her giggling and used her other hands to wipe her eyes. 'Why is it that when I'm with Crecy my emotions just explode,' she thought, annoyed by that fact.

"You okay?" Crecy asked, noticing the mood had changed.

"Yeah...We almost there?" Samus asked, doing her best to quickly reign in her emotions. 'No point looking weak in front of Crecy..'

"Yeah, not much further." Crecy picked up the pace and lead them into a nearby apparel store that she'd heard had a good selection of footwear. "Okay, your turn again."

"Have you ever had a lover?" Samus asked, wanting for Crecy to feel just as awkward as it was for her to be asked about her prophecy. As she asked this, she looked around for any shoes that would match the dress. Out the corner of her eye she saw her partner stumble and blush for a moment.

"Uh, If you mean like, in a serious committed relationship, then yes. It didn't last long though." she admitted. "Why not, what happened?" Samus responded, looking over at her best friend, ready to change topic if that was a rough one for the spy.

"He died. I'd...prefer not to say more than that."

"Oh...Sorry to hear that," Samus said, before deciding to change the subject as to not make her uncomfortable, so she picked up a pair of black heels, "Do you think these shoes match my dress?"

"I actually think that something more like these wedges would look better. I just think the straps around the ankles look sexier."

Samus picked them from Crecy, "You sure?" she asked as she kicked off her blue boots before then putting the wedges on. "So, you think they make me sexier?" she asked with a coy grin.

"You could say that." Crecy said with an equally coy look. "You don't have to base your decisions on what _I_ think though."

Samus just smirked and leaned in and whispered, "If I didn't base my decisions on what you thought, I'd currently be 20 light years away, alone," she said with a small smirk before leaving a faint, almost unnoticeable peck on her cheek.

A blush started to form on Crecy's cheeks. "Don't you have any friends of your own? Other hunters, contacts maybe?"

Samus leaned back, her face back to passively neutral, "A few contacts, nothing close to friendship. As for hunters...No, most now seem to either want me gone, to teach them or just get my autograph."

Crecy gave this some thought. "So, you've never had a lover then?"

Samus froze, a faint redness covering her cheeks, "erm...No," she muttered out, a bit embarrassed about saying she was 28 and still a virgin.

Crecy was quiet for a moment, then smiled. "Well, I hope I can be a good friend to you at least. Even the way we met was a little...unorthodox."

The bounty hunter let out a small laugh and wrapped the spy in another hug. She seemed to be doing that a lot now with Crecy. "You don't have to hope, you are," She said, before pulling away and smiling sincerely, "And I like to think that the saying is true, 'a friend in need is a friend indeed.'"

Samus's com buzzed suddenly. The anonymous message was simple: "Bring the slave" and an address deep in the worst parts of the sprawl.

A scowl immediately hit her face as she heard the message, "I'm sorry Crecy, but we're going to have to cut our date short," she stated as she briskly strolled towards her ship, obviously angered by the sudden loss of a good 'girls day out'.

Crecy's expression suddenly turned serious as she followed behind. "What's wrong?"

"The slave trade is now," Samus said, the kindness and friendship gone from her voice as after 18 minutes they arrived back at her ship.

"I hope we're ready for this…" Crecy said as she prepared herself for the mission ahead, slipping a small pistol into a concealed holster. "I've never dealt with slavers before, so I hope you know what we're doing."

Samus threw her the collar she had used last time as she got her own pistol:The always reliable, stun gun. "Of course, it's pretty simple: find the boss, kill everyone else and bring his head to the office...Preferable 50 miles from the rest of him.." She mutter, spitefully.


	14. Sorry, but this is it

Chapter 13: The last chapter

Previously: This time I'm going to talk to you about something that been bugging me while I stayed up today. If you've ever seen spiderman in any of his incarnations then you probably met a character called "J. Jonah Jameson". The thing is though, that although most people think of him as a bad guy who only hates spiderman, he actually has a lot of depth to him. If any of you's have seen the movie with Toby Maguire, there is a scene where the goblin threatens him to tell him who takes the photos of spiderman, but lies even though peter is in the exact same room as him. It shows that he does care about the character of Peter. In the Spiderman: animated show, there are two specific episodes that showcase his 'love'' for his 'friends'. The episodes being, "The man with no fear," and "Guilty." In "The man with no fear," it is shown that J.J was the one who paid Matt Murdock (Daredevil) to be Peter's lawyer after he is framed for treason, however, he asks that Peter isn't told and said, "It'll ruin my image." In "Guilty," after Robbie is framed by the kingpin, J.J goes all out to find out who framed him, even stating to Robbie's family, "Anything you need: it's yours." These are but a few examples of this, so next time you say 'That J.J scumbag,' just remember all the crap he's done for his friends and family.

It had started to rain when Samus and Crecy arrived at the given address, a block of abandoned warehouses that were beginning to show signs of decay despite their otherwise sturdy construction.

"It looks like we're expected." Crecy said. Samus looked where her partner was pointing and spotted a bright yellow arrow painted on the side of the building, very much out of place among the layers of gang tags and graffiti, and still damp besides.

There was another one a little further on at the entrance of a nearby alley, and as they followed the arrows they discovered yet more leading them down an ever-twisting path of alleyways and blocked-off passages. The rain did little to break the eerily quiet that surrounded them as they mutely followed the arrows to whatever was on the other end.

'_Like rats in a maze.'_ Samus thought to herself.

They abruptly found themselves standing inside an empty warehouse with no more arrows to follow, just a large 'X' in the same paint in the center of the oil-stained concrete floor. The room was almost entirely bare, save for some rusty gantries that ran across the circumference of the room. It was the perfect spot for an ambush.

Samus, hoping that for once she really was just a pessimist, walked over to the 'X' and called out, "I'm here with the slave!" How much she despised saying that one 5 letter word was, thankfully, not conveyed in the sentence.

A rusty door slid open on the second level, and a squad of six armored men with carbines hanging in slings over one shoulder filed onto the gantry above them. Once they were in position a side door swung open and a man in a suit with two similarly armed guards strode forward towards Samus. He was tall, thin, unhealthily pale, and he wasn't their target.

"I hope you excuse the additional security, but it's a necessary evil these days I'm afraid." the man said.

The (in)famous bounty hunter glanced around, her eyes looking over the six men quickly, before fixing her gaze on the man, "Where's Mr Raleigh, I wasn't expecting someone else." She glanced over at Crecy momentarily. '_Crap, this wasn't part of the plan. How're we supposed to find him now...'_

The man held up his hands in peace.

"Don't worry miss Avon. This is simply a security precaution." he pulled out a scanner and waved it over her and Crecy. "No bugs or tracking devices...good. Now we can begin negotiations. How much do you want for this girl?" He looked Crecy up and down, and seemed slightly disappointed.

"I can see you seem...Less than stellar about her, so how about: 30,000 Credits?" 'Avon' bargained easily, even though her mind was racing through possible scenarios to get Mr Raleigh through this deal.

The man practically scoffed. "30,000 for this little thing? Unless there is something very special about her that isn't readily apparent I'd say you're asking more than double what she's worth. So what is it?"

"This one can hack into computers and mechanoids," Samus stated, not really thinking about what she was saying. 'How can I get to Raleigh from this? I could threaten them...They might not even know and I could spook him. I could let them take Crecy and follow them...No, that'd be too dangerous' Samus thought, planning as she did, "That's worth 50,000 credits alone."

He rubbed his chin, suddenly intrigued. "Now that's worth something. Though if she is as good as you say she could easily earn several times that in a few years. While we'd be pleased to have her, why are you offering to sell her?"

Samus' thoughts momentarily stopped at that question, 'Why would I sell Crecy?' she thought, coming up with a quick, if a little lame, answer, "I need the money for...Personal reasons, shall we say, and although she is useful, the money is more useful for me now."

This seemed to satisfy the dealer. "I see." he turned away and muttered something under his breath into a communicator. When he turned around again he seemed oddly smug. "Mr. Raleigh will be here in a moment, as you requested. It seems your merchandise has properly piqued his interest."

Samus inwardly cheered at that revelation. "I am glad to hear that," She proclaimed, a smirk on her face, due to how well this was going, "I can see a prosperous future because of this." For once that day, she wasn't lying, but it prospered much for her than him.

The dealer nodded and left the room. No sooner had the door closed behind him than one of the guards that had escorted the dealer in removed his helmet, revealing Mr. Raleigh himself.

"I apologize for the deception, but these are dangerous times." he said to Samus. Then he turned to Crecy. "Come on girl, let's get a look at you."

Crecy shot a nervous glance towards her partner, then stepped forward. Raleigh reached out and brushed her hair aside until he revealed the socket in the back of her neck. "Ah, I see you're not a normal hacker are you?" he said.

Crecy said nothing while the dealer returned with a sturdy briefcase.

"You'll find the payment to be perfectly untraceable." Raleigh said. "Now, the girl's collar control if you please."

**A/N we probably won't continue this story. In-fact I know we aren't. So to all the 5 fans that were reading this, I'm sorry, but it going to end with a happy ending. Samus and Crecy finally proclaiming their love for each other, getting all of their bounty's, loads of wonderful fluffy moments that would make you go 'Awwww' but this is it. Goodbye and thanks for all the fish!**


End file.
